/ 



BOM E : 

FROM THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. 



Works by the same Author. 



ANCIENT EGYPT : its Antiquities, Religion, and His- 
tory, to the close of the Old Testament period. Fcap. 8vo. "With 
Map and Numerous Illustrations. Cloth boards, 4s. 

EGYPT : from the Conquest of Alexander the Great to 
Napoleon Buonaparte. An Historical Sketch. Fcap. 8vo. With 
Frontispiece. Cloth boards, 5s. 

RUSSIA, ANCIENT AND MODERN. Fcap. 8vo. 

"With Maps. Cloth boards, 4s. 

INDIA: an Historical Sketch. Fcap. 8vo. With Map. 

Cloth boards, 3e. 



INDIA : its Natives and Missions. Fcap. 8ro. Cloth 

boards, 3s. 



L 3 



ROME 



The Fall of the Western Empire. 



REV. GEORGE TREVOR, M.A, 



Canon of York. 




LONDON : 



THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY, 

56, PATERNOSTER ROW; 65, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD 
AND 164, PICCADILLY. 



\Right of Translation Reserved.} 



PREFACE. 



This volume is not a History of Eome ; nor of the 
Church of Eome, properly so called. It is concerned 
only with the influence exerted by the Eoman See on 
the churches and states of other countries. The 
peculiarity of the papacy is, that of all people the 
Eomans have had the least to do with it; its subjects 
are gathered out of other peoples, and its yoke is 
nowhere less acceptable than in the city with whose 
name it would overawe the world. Eome is not so 
much the capital of the Papal States, or of Italy, as it 
is the metropolis of a faith which has long languished 
at home. The tombs of the apostles, 1 the temples and 
shrines of the Eternal City, belong to the pilgrims rather 
than the Eomans. When the Holy Father gives his 
blessing, from the balcony of St. Peter's, urhi et orM, 
the world is first in idea though last in the expression. 
This unique allotrio-episcopacy? is the subject of the 
following pages. 

1 On these " Trophies of the Apostles," the fragment of Caius referred 
to in p. 65, is not to be rated at more than its true worth. Its authority is 
solely that of Eusebius (in the fourth century), and Eusebius is by no 
means infallible. Other passages ascribed to Caius are now believed to 
belong to other writers. 

2 St. Peter's own word for "a busy body in other men's matters." 
1 Pet. iv. 15. 



VI 



PREFACE. 



The treatment is historical rather than polemical. It 
is history which supplies the completest refutation of the 
papal claims. It doubts whether St. Peter was ever in 
Borne ; it is certain that he was not the founder or first 
bishop of its See. History exhibits the earliest bishops 
of Rome as enjoying no prerogative above their brethren 
in other cities. The primacy conferred by the Christian 
emperors acquired temporal attributes in the decay of 
the old Koman State : the conversion of the barbarians 
elevated it into a power capable of defying the effete 
Cossars of the East : Pepin and Charlemagne invested 
it with a fief out of the spoils of the Lombards ; and Leo 
returned the favour by consecrating the new empire, 
which Charlemagne had conquered for himself in the 
West. The long struggle which ensued between pope and 
emperor, culminated in the Hildebrandine supremacy. 
The spiritual father became the earthly sovereign of 
Western Christendom. The two swords were united 
with the two keys : the coronets which encircled 
the mitre, in right of its Italian principalities, were 
exalted into the triple crown of a supernatural dominion. 

All was of the earth, earthy : the texts which succes- 
sively crowned the edifice were mere accommodations of 
the sacred language. The tu es Petrus, which made not 
the slightest impression in the middle of the second 
century, when Stephen hurled his bolt at the African 
Church, was brandished by Gelasius, at the end of the 
fifth, as a Divine endowment anterior to church canons 
and imperial edicts. After Hildebrand, the favourite text 
was, " I have set thee over the nations and over the 
kingdoms to root out and to plant." Such ex post facto 



PREFACE. 



Vll 



applications have no claim to be treated as serious inter- 
pretations of the Word of God. 

It is history, again, which proves the surest arbiter 
on the religions and political effects of the Papacy. 
The Churches were never so corrupt, the States never 
so barbarous and immoral, as where the Eoman pontiff 
ruled with supremest sway. Every attempt at moral 
and religious reform, every effort at civil liberty, 
found itself obliged to take the form of resistance to the 
pope. Councils and Parliaments were powerless where 
his authority prevailed ; freedom of conscience, liberty, 
and life itself, have never anywhere been secure till it 
was utterly renounced. Against this unvarying voice 
of history no theories of sacerdotal dreamers will be 
admitted by any practical Christian. To suppose that 
such a rule is ordained of God, is to suppose that He has 
given up the creature who was made after His own 
image, and redeemed by the Blood of His dear Son, 
to the powers of darkness. 

Finally, history attests the unrelenting warfare 
between the papacy and the Word of God. The Holy 
Scriptures which formed the rule of faith in the primitive 
Church of Eome, and still hold the same place in every 
other church, are to the papacy alone, of all Christian 
denominations, the object of dread and persecution. Its 
sacrilegious hand commits to the flames the books which 
primitive Christians suffered martyrdom rather than 
betray to the heathen. Its choicest Acts of faith have 
been to burn alive at the stake those who read and be- 
lieved them ! History is not deceived by the compulsory 
moderation of modern popes. It knows the principles 



Till 



PREFACE. 



of this enmity to be unchanged ; it discovers them in 
exercise whenever their exercise was possible ; and it 
foretells their active revival if ever " that which now 
letteth " be taken out of the way. 

The intelligent reader will decide for himself how 
far this historical testimony, this unconcealed enmity to 
the Word of God, this usurpation of the reign of Christ, 
accompanied by the suppression of His Gospel, the 
depreciation of His Blood, and the persecution of His 
saints, confirm the exposition of learned men that Eome 
is Babylon, and the Papacy is Antichrist. The author 
is content to have supplied materials for the judgment. 
He ventures on no prophecy, though he believes the 
present form of popery to be at its last gasp. The 
temporality is expiring, but it may be that the spiritual 
thraldom will continue, and even wax darker and 
heavier in the souls of its devotees, when the pope 
shall no longer have a crown, or it may be a see, at 
Eome. The future is with God. Be it ours to dwell 
in the love and light of Our Father in Heaven, by 
cherishing the Saviour's Cross in our hearts, and 
submitting our lives to the sweet rule of His Holy 
Spirit ! 



"Burton St. Peteb's, Holdeeness : 
Decemler, 1868. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

The Christian Empire ...... 1 

CHAPTER II. 

Eall of the West 39 

CHAPTER III. 
The Apostolic See . . . . . 50 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Exarchate ..... 85 

CHAPTER V. 

The Carloyingian Empire 121 

CHAPTER VI. 
The German Empire 141 

CHAPTER VII. 
Hildebrand . . . . , . 163 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Monks and the Crusades . . . . 196 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Medijeyal Papacy . . . . . .216 



X 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER X. 

PAGE 

The Avignon Papacy . . . . . . . 247 

CHAPTER XL 
The Great Schism . . . . - . . .269 

CHAPTER XII. 

Struggles of the Councils 293 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Protestant Reformation . . . . .327 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Papal Reaction . . . . . . 363 

CHAPTER XV. 
Decline and Tall of the Papacy . . . .401 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The French Reconstruction . . . . 442 



* 



CONTEMPORARY SUCCESSIONS TO THE DIVISION OF THE 

EMPIRE. 



EMPERORS. 



i Octavianus 
I gustus. 

14 Tiberius. 



105 
167 
169 
173 
177 
179 
ISO 
185 



Caligula. 
Claudius 



BISHOPS OF THE PATRIARCHAL SEES. 



Constanti- 
nople. 



Nero. 



Galba. 
Otho. 
Vitellius. 
Vespasian. 



St. Peter (?) 
Linus' (?) 



Titus. 
Domitian. 



Nerva. 
Trajan 



Cletus (?) 

Clement i. 
Evaristus. 



Hadrian. 



Alexander i. 
Sixtus i. 



Antoninus Pius 



Marcus Aurelius 
Antoninus Phil. 
Lucius Verus. 



Telesphorus. 



Hyginus. 
Pius i. 



Anicetus. 



Commodus. 



Soter. 

Eleutherius. 



Pertinax. 

Julian. 

Severus. 

Caracalla. 



Macrinus. 
Heliogabalus. 



Alexander. 



Maximinus . . 

( Maximus and 
\ Balbinus. 
Gordianus. 

Philip'." 

Decius. 



IZephyrinus. 



Calixtus i. 

Urban i. 

Pontianus. 

Anterus. 
Fabian. * 



Alexandria. 



Antioch. 



Jerusalem. 



St. Mark(?) 



Anianus 



Abilius. 

Cerdo. 
Primus. 



St. Peter (?) 



Euodius. 



Ignatius. 



Heros i. 



Simon Cleophas (?) 



Justus. 
Eumenius. 



Marcian. 



Celadion. 



Agrippinus. 



Julian. 



Cornelius. 



Heros n. 



Theophilus. 



Justus i., followed 
by Zaccheus, To- 
bias, Benjamin, 
John i., Matthew, 
Benjamin n., 
Philip, Seneca, 
Justus in., Levi, 
Ephraim, and 
Judas: Bishops of 
the Circumcision. 
Mark, first bishop 
of the Uncircumci- 
sion, followed by 
Cassius, Publius 
Maximus r., Ju- 
lian i., Caian, 
Julian ii., Capito. 



Maximin. 
Serapion. 



Asclepiades. 



. . Philetus. 



• • Zebenus. 



Maximus n., fol- 
lowed by Antonius, 
Valens, Dulcian, 
Narcissus, Dins, 
Grermanian, and 
Gordius. 



Alexander. 



Heraclas. 



Babylas. 



Dionysius. 



* The episcopal successions at Rome down to Fabian are variously dated by the Chronologists, 
and the earlier names (at least) are involved in much uncertainty. 



CONTEMPORARY SUCCESSIONS TO THE DlYISIOX OF THE EMPIRE 

{continued) . 



BISHOPS OF THE PATEIAECHAL SEES. 



EMPEKOKS. 



Rome. 



251 Gallus 

252 •• ;• 

253 valerian 

257 j • • 

258 !• • 

260 !• • 



. . Cornelius 
. . Lucius i. 
. . Stephen i. 
. . jSixtus ii. 
. . jDionysius. 



Constanti- 
nople. 



Alexandria. 



IMaximus. 



268 i Claudius n. 

269 v - 

270 ! Aurehan 

275 | Tacitus 

276 .Probus. 

281 I 

282 Carus 

283 

9ft i ( Diocletian and 
abl I \ Maximian 



Felix i. 
Eutychian 



Caius. 



Jerusalem. 



Fabius. 
Demetrianus 



Paul of Sa- 
mosata. 



Doninus r. 
Timneus. 



'Hymeneus 



296 
297 



Marcellinus 



300 | 

| j Constantius and 

305 j ( Galerius. 

306 i Galerius. 

_ Constantius. 
_ Severus. 
_ jMaxentius. 
_ jMaximin. i 
308 IMarcellus i. 

310 ' Eusebius. 

311 | iMelchiades..!.. 

312 ■■ 

i Constantine I. ! 
313 \ Victor j 

314 ! Sylvester i. 

318 Alexander. 

319 



Theonas. 



. .. 

'. Peter : 



Cyra. 



Tyi'annu3. 



Zambdas. 
Hermo. 



. . ^Achillas 
. . Alexandf 



325 First (Ecu 
328 !■• 
331 
336 

Constantine n. 
Constantius. 



367 

370 
373 

375 

379 

380 

381 

384 
585 
380 
303 



ml Council at Nicosa. 
Mark. 



Vitalis. 
Philogouus. 



Paulinus. 
'Eustathius. 



Macarius 



Constans. 



Julius i. 



Constantius. 



iLiberius. 



Julian Apostate 
Jovian. 

(Valentinian and 
\ Valens. 

C Valentinian 
< Valens and Gra- 
{ tian. 



/Valens, Gratian, 

< and Valentinian 
In. 

t Gratian, Valen- 

< tinian n., and 
\ Theodosius. 



. . Paul. 

i Eusebius of 
( iXicomedia. 

■ ■ |Macedonius. 

• ■ lEudoxius. 



..; Cyril. 



( Second (Ecumenical Councilat 
\ Constantinople. 

i Syricius. 



Theodosius [d. 395. )| 
— Arcadius & Hon-' 
orius. 



Demophihts, 
Evagrius. 



Meletius. 



; Evagrius. 



Gregory of 

Nazianzum. 

Nectarius. 



Peter n. 



Timothy. 



Theophilus. 



Flavian. 



ROME: 

FEOM THE FALL OF THE WESTEEN EMPIEE. 



CHAPTEE I. 

THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 

The City — Origin — Romulus — Capitol — Forum — Three Tribes of the 
Populus — The Plebs — Seven-hilled City — Language — Institutions — 
Religion — Aqueducts — Expulsion of the Kings — Consuls, Senatus 
Populusque — Fall of the Republic — Dictators — Empire — Extent — 
Unity — Prophecy — Elective Principle — Orientalism — Diocletian — 
Constantine the Great — State of Religion — The Miraculous Cross — 
The Labarum — Establishment of Christianity — State Hierarchy — 
Distribution of Provinces — Ecclesiastical Organisation — Growth of 
Prelacy — Imperial Supremacy — Church and State — Unforeseen 
Results — The Fatal Donation — Constantine's Baptism — Donatist 
Schism — Fanaticism. 

The grand and unique phenomenon of Eoman History 
is the growth of a City into an Empire — an empire which 
retained the name of the city for centuries after the 
government had migrated into other lands, and even 
when Eome was no longer included within its limits. 
The sovereigns of Byzantium, France, and Germany 
boasted the style of Eoman emperors, without possessing 
a drop of Eoman blood, or a yard of Eoman territory. 
The Turks, who never set foot in Eome, inherit her 
name at this day on the shores of the Hellespont. 1 

1 Roum and Roumania still witness to the persistency both of Greek 
peasants and Moslem oppressors, in the strange assertion of the Roman 
name. 



2 



THE CHRISTIAN EMPIEE. 



Before the Christian era, the "Eonian orb" signified 
the civilised world: at the present hour the Eoman 
pontiff wears the triple crown, and regards his commu- 
nion as synonymous with the Catholic Church. No 
other city ever showed a vitality so enduring and 
multiform ; none ever exercised so extensive an influence 
on the human race. Even in its degradation, Eome is, 
like no other place, a centre of hopes and fears ; a 
problem to the states, and a rock of offence to the 
churches, of Europe. 

Eoman history is a library in itself: to write a 
single division might be the work of a life. What is to 
be attempted in these pages is to sketch the origin of 
the existing government ; how it rose out of the ashes of 
the fallen empire, and, taking the lead in a new civilisa- 
tion, drew the infant states of Europe to its embrace. 
Our course will skirt the most eventful developments of 
Christianity ; it will cross the fountain-heads of almost 
all existing controversies. We shall touch, without em- 
barking upon, the stream of unfulfilled prophecy. The 
object in view is not polemical, but historical ; but as 
no religious argument is thoroughly convincing without 
an historical basis, so no history can be truly told 
without resulting in religious conclusions. The 
thoughtful reader will feel that " God standeth in the 
congregation of the mighty." 1 He will be reminded 
of the Preacher's exhortation: " If thou seest the oppres- 
sion of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and 
justice in a province, marvel not at the matter : for He 
that is higher than the highest regardeth ; and there be 
higher than they." 2 

The origin of Eome is lost in the fables of antiquity. 
Jotham, the grandfather of Hezekiah, was reigning at 

1 Pa. lxxxii. 1. 2 Eccl. v. 8. 



ROMULUS. 



3 



Jerusalem, when, according to the legend, Eomulus 
founded a new settlement on one of the small hills 
forming the left bank of the Biver Tiber (b.c. 753). 
This part of Italy was at that time occupied by a number 
of independent tribes, of whom the most conspicuous are 
the Latins 1 and Sabines, 2 on the south side of the river, 
and the Etruscans on the north. Eomulus was a 
fugitive from the Latin capital Alba Longa, the tradi- 
tionary city of Ascanius, son of the Trojan .ZEneas. 3 The 
legend relates that he was suckled by a wolf, an object 
of superstitious veneration among the Sabines, 4 who occu- 
pied two of the neighbouring hills, afterwards known as 
the Capitoline and the QuirinaV The mount on which 
Eomulus built his castle was called the Palatine, a name 
transmitted to the palaces of sovereigns and bishops to 
the present day ; but the origin of which, as of most 
other appellations of the period, is highly uncertain. 6 
In his new settlement, Eomulus offered an asylum like 
the cave of Adullam, where " every one that was in 
distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one 
that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him ; and 
he became a captain over them." The marsh between 

1 Dr. Donaldson connects this name with the Lettes, or Lithuanians 
(whom he conceives to be of the same stock), and with the German leute, 
the people, literally "freemen." — Varronianus, pp. 7 and 70. 

2 Worshippers of Sabus, son of Sancus." — Ibid. p. 10. 

3 This tradition confirms the existence of a Pelasgic element in the 
population of Latium. According to Dr. Donaldson, JEneas is a Pelasgic 
name for a river god, whence the modern Arno. — Ibid. p. 9. 

4 Ibid. pp. 6 and 68 : the superstition was retained by the Romans. 

5 Capitoline is obviously connected with caput, a head ; and a man's 
head is said to have been found in digging the foundation for the temple 
of Jupiter Capitolinus ; but the name may have denoted that it was the 
chief ornament and defence of the state. Quirium, as Niebuhr conjectures, 
-vvas the name of the Sabine city on this hill. Romulus was worshipped 
here as Quirinus, and the Romans affected to call themselves Quirites. 

6 Palatinus is probably in some way connected with the Pelasgi. 
There was a place of similar name in Arcadia. Pales, the goddess of sheep- 
folds, had an annual feast to commemorate the foundation of Romulus. 

B 2 



4 



THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 



their hill and the Capitoline was the forum, or market- 
place where the two nations condncted their intercourse. 
Either by force or persuasion the Sabines were induced 
to supply the freebooters with wives/ and the two settle- 
ments became one people. A third tribe of Etruscan 
(or Pelasgic) origin, which had established itself on the 
Ccelian and Esquiline 2 hills, was admitted into the commu- 
nity ; and these three constituted the " Eoman people.' ' 
They were commemorated in the three tribes or classes 
which long monopolised the power of the state ; the 
Latins in the Bamnenses, the Sabines in the Titienses, 
and the Etruscans in the Luceres. These alone were 
entitled to the name and franchise of the populus 
Romanus. Becoming strong enough to subdue the old 
Latin capital, they removed the inhabitants of Alba 
Longa, and settled them as a subjugated class on the 
Aventine hill, which was then without the city walls. 
These were the commons, or plebs, who, though not 
reduced to personal slavery, had no share in the public 
property, and no voice in the administration of the 
state. The Aventine was included, together with the 
Viminal, by the stone wall ascribed to Servius Tullus, 
some traces of which are still visible. This was Eome f 
or, according to her own favourite appellation, the Seven- 
hilled City} 

1 Hence the poetical legend of the rape of the Sabines, invented, says 
Dr. Donaldson, to explain the marriage ceremonies in which, as among the 
Lithuanians of the present day, the bride was borne to her new home with 
an appearance of force. — Varronianus, p. 68. 

2 Probably a corruption of " excultus," from its sacred grove, or, as 
some think, from its being (at first) beyond the cultivated limits. 

3 Of the numerous etymologies, the two most probable are — 1, Rumo, 
"the stream" — compare Rhine, Rhone, Rha (Volga), the Greek pev, 
Latin ruo, German re?inen, English run ; and 2, Grumus, or groma, 
the name given to the point of intersection of the streets in the Forum, 
where a mound or monument was erected. — Varronianus, p. 68, n. 

4 Sed quae de septem totum circumspicit orbem, 
Montibus imperii, Roma deumque locus. — Ov. Fast. 



PRIMITIVE RELIGIONS. 



5 



The heterogeneous community retained the name 
and speech of the traditionary chief of the Palatine : 
the city was Borne, and the people Romans : but the 
language, though enriched with numerous foreign 
elements, was always Latin. 

The political and religious institutions of this 
remarkable people, which enabled them to influence 
for ages the condition of mankind, were all planted 
during the obscure infancy of the state under the rule of 
the Kings. There is no doubt that, at least, the last three 
of these rulers belonged to an Etruscan dynasty, which 
had twice subjected Eome to a foreign tyranny ; hence 
the undying hatred ever afterwards borne to the kingly 
name and emblems. Yet the religious rites, which more 
powerfully than any other affected the Eoman mind, were 
so inseparably connected with the regal office, that a 
" king of the sacrifices" was always retained in the college 
of pontiffs, to conduct the public worship. 

The settlement of Eomulus was apparently without 
any temple or idol : its religion consisted for the most 
part of auspices and omens, taken after the Latin 
or aboriginal superstition. The Capitoline was called 
the Saturnian hill, a name which indicates the worship 
of the god of time, whom the Greeks called Chronos, 
and the Etruscans Saturnus. Numa Pompilius, the 
successor of Eomulus, established, according to the 
legend, pontiffs, augurs, flamens, vestal virgins to 
watch the ever-burning fire, and the salii, who danced 
before the god of war, and kept the sacred shield 
which fell down from heaven. But the Etruscans 
venerated the Grecian deities, and, above all, the 

There was an earlier Septimontium, consisting of the smaller emi- 
nences above the Palatine, before the incorporation of the Sabines.- 
Arnold's "History of Rome," ch. iii 



6 



THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 



three whom they called Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. 1 
They held that every city ought to have three gates 
consecrated to these divinities, and it was an Etruscan 
king, Tarquinius Priscus, who cleared away the old gods 
from the Saturnian Hill, and raised a new temple to 
Jupiter Capitolinus with the two goddesses, his consort 
and offspring. The old native rites w T ere thus permanently 
supplanted by the Greek mythology, and it was said that 
" Saturn was dethroned by his son." 2 The Eomans, in 
expelling their tyrants, adhered to the foreign idols 
with such tenacity, that when, in the sixth century of 
the city, the books of Kuma were discovered in his 
tomb under the Janiculum, the preetor ordered them to 
be burnt as overthrowing the Eoman religion. This was 
the first of the autos-da-fe, for which the Eternal City is 
notorious. 

To the kings also belonged the merit of those stupen- 
dous buildings for the draining of the marshy valleys 
of Borne, of which the remains are still visible : they are 
proofs of a powerful government and a nation of serfs. 
All the moral and political greatness of the state was 
achieved after their overthrow. When the last tyrant 
was expelled (b.c. 509), there remained, not a free com- 
monwealth, but an " exclusive and tyrannical aristo- 
cracy," 3 lording it over a mob of oppressed and dispirited 
commons. The entire Eoman territory did not exceed 
forty miles in length and thirty in breadth. 

The senate assuming the government elected annually 
two Consuls, or, as the old name was, Prcetors, for the 

1 The Greek names were Zeus, Hera, and Athene. The first is equi- 
valent to deus and dies (day) whence the Etruscans called him Diespiter, 
or Jupiter, " Father of Light." Juno (Jovino or Dguno) was a feminine 
formation, and Menerfa, or Minerva, was connected with the myth which 
described this deity as springing from the head of Jove, for the head was 
the seat of the intellect (mens) as the heart of the animus. 

2 Justin, xliii. 1. 3 Arnold's " History of Rome," i. 69. 



FALL OF THE REPUBLIC. 



7 



executive. The dissensions between the privileged and 
the unenfranchised classes long threatened anarchy : but 
when these had been in some degree adjusted, the 
senate and people of Eome carried their arms to the 
farthest limits of the known world. The Mediterranean 
Sea was converted into a Eoman lake, and the fairest 
portions of Europe, Africa, and Asia, received their 
laws from the banks of the Tiber. 

The name and forms of this illustrious republic 
were cherished for centuries after the reality had 
disappeared : they are not wholly obliterated even under 
the Papacy. Practically, however, the commonwealth 
may be said to have terminated in the dictatorship of 
Sylla (b.c. 80), for " though he restored the republic" 
(as Cicero observes) u it cannot be denied that he had 
the power of a king." The four-ana-twenty lictors 
attended on his person with the fasces and axes ; he 
repealed and enacted laws, named the consuls to be 
chosen by the senate, and distributed the public lands at 
his discretion. 

The arbitrary power thus established was not abolished 
by the resignation of Syria, who retired into privacy 
before his third year of office was completed. The 
senate and consuls were never afterwards without a 
master. In the opinion of a modern historian, who has 
undertaken the same task of converting a republic into 
an empire, " the irresolute multitude, fatigued by the 
action and reaction of opposing parties, aspired to order 
and repose." 1 The first triumvirate ended in the dicta- 
torship of Julius Csesar, and the second, which sprang 
from his ashes, culminated in the sole sovereignty of 
his nephew and avenger, Octavian. Under this prince 
the republic transformed itself into a monarchy, with so 
little political commotion that it seemed as if the 

1 " History of Julius Ceesar," by the Emperor Napoleon ILL., vol. i. 



8 



THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 



popular rule found its crown and consummation in the 
imperial. 1 

The empire increased its population in twenty years 
from 4,000,000 to 6,844,000, and the social benefits of 
the revolution were expressed in the boast of Augustus, 
that he found Eome of brick and left it of marble. He 
was ignorant of the more glorious revolution which was 
to date from his reign. In the twenty-third year of 
the first. Augustus the true Prince of Peace was born 
in a hostelry of Judea. 

The Eoman empire attained its widest limits under 
Trajan (a.d. 117), when it extended over all Europe 
south of the Ehine and Danube, with Dacia and Britain ; 
Asia from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and 
the Persian Gulf ; with Egypt and the northern 
coast of Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. The subsequent 
partition of these enormous territories between contem- 
poraneous emperors did not destroy the unity of the 
empire. It was still one state, administered from dif- 
ferent centres, but cleaving to the eegis of one parent 
and capital — the Seven-hilled City. Even the more 
formal division of East and West, at the death of 
Theodosius the Great (a.d. 395), could not efface the 
sentiment. When at the expiry of the twelve centuries, 
believed to have been foreboded by the twelve vultures 
of her founder, 2 Eome fell a prey to the Goths, and 
the Western Empire was extinguished, her name and 

1 Some commentators explain the " seven kings 1 ' (Rev. xvii. 10) of 
these successive forms of government : 1, kings ; 2, consuls ; 3, dictators ; 
4, decemviri ; 5, military tribunes ; 6, emperors. Of these five were 
fallen, the sixth in existence, and a seventh to succeed at a future 
period. It is difficult, however, to regard these forms of government 
as properly successive. Nos. 3, 4, and 5 were but temporary invasions 
of No. 2, which subsisted from the expulsion of the kings to the rise of 
the empire. 

2 This tradition was at least as old as Cicero. 



> 



PROPHECY. 



9 



authority survived at Constantinople. And when this 
New Eome yielded in her turn; first to the luxury, and 
then to the arms, of barbarians, the Eternal City took the 
conquerors to her bosom, and, vanquishing them by the 
power of religion, raised a new empire out of the ashes 
of the old. 

Throughout these changes Eome was ever the mother 
and mistress of the subject world. Eepublican, Im- 
perial, or Papal, it was the Seven-hilled City which 
set her stamp on ages and generations. She glorified 
herself, and lived deliciously. She said in her heart " I 
sit a queen." The kings and inhabitants of the earth 
drank of her cup, and in her was found the blood of 
prophets and of saints, and of all that were slain upon 
the earth. The woman, arrayed in purple and scarlet, 
with the inscription on her tiara, " Babylon the Great, 
the mother of harlots and abominations," is by common 
consent acknowledged to be Eome. Papal writers, 
applying the vision to Pagan Eome, imagine the judg- 
ments to be fulfilled, but less partial students of 
prophecy discern its criteria still more distinctly in 
Papal Eome, and look for a yet future judgment, when 
"her plagues shall come in one day, death, and mourning, 
and famine ; and she shall be utterly burned with fire : 
for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. That 
great city Babylon shall be thrown down, and shall be 
found no more at all." 1 

It should be observed that the empire and the emperor 
were not originally terms of cognate signification. Both 
were in use under the republic; but while imperium 
was applied to the entire dominions, in the modern sense 
of " empire," 2 the imperator was simply a general in the 

1 Rev. xvii. 5, 6 ; xviii. 3, 7, 8, 21. 

2 In strictness of speech imperium signified the military power, and 
potestas the civil ; but the Imperium Romanum was a popular term for the 



10 



THE CHRISTIAN EMPIEE. 



army. It was the title by which the soldiers were 
accustomed to salute a victorious commander, as they 
raised him on their shields, and bore him in triumph 
through the ranks. The appellation was retained, if 
confirmed by the senate, till the honours of the more 
formal triumph had been duly earned. Julius Csesar 
selected this popular designation to disguise the monarchy 
which he extorted from the senate on the death of his 
great rival Pompey. A dictatorship for life, with the 
power of raising men and money at discretion, fell short of 
royalty only in name ; but the name, he was aware, would 
create more odium at Borne than the thing ; and w T hile 
the vain-glorious Antony pressed him to assume a crown, 
Ceesar wisely contented himself with the unpretending 
laurel of imperator. Under this familiar title, so often 
bestowed upon him by his victorious legions, he pos- 
sessed himself of all the practical powers of an Oriental 
despot, and it became to his successors the received 
designation of more than regal majesty. 

The ambition of the second Ceesar was to found an 
empire of peace more than of arms. Octavian aimed, 
like Julius, at absorbing rather than abrogating the 
republic — to be a despot by election instead of force. 
He was elected Consul for ten years, and by renewal for 
life. As Princeps Senatus, the title he most affected, he 
suggested the decrees which he executed as Consul. He 
was the head of the state religion as Chief Pontiff ; he 
commanded the army as Imperator ; regulated the 
finances as Censor ; and held the Comitia as Tribune of 
the People. These offices involved the entire adminis- 
tration of the Soman State. Their union requiring a 

whole government, like our own British, or Indian, Empire. It is in this 
sense that Russia and China are called empires, and their sovereigns 
emperors. In Germany, on the other hand, the title was claimed as a 
continuation of the peculiar majesty of Rome. — See the author's u Russia, 
Ancient and Modern," p. 87. 



ORIENTALISM. 



11 



title of larger significance than the old Latin imperator, 
Octavian proposed to assume the name of Eomulus, as 
though a second founder of the state. The senate pre- 
ferred to regard him as the consecrator of a new era ; and 
selecting a term of religious import, they hailed the 
new sovereign as Augustus. This was ever after the 
sovereign title. The family name of Ccesar was retained 
by the first twelve, though the blood of Julius perished 
with Nero. 1 Succeeding emperors granted it to their 
intended heirs, who were thus created (as it were) 
princes of the blood, and admitted to the honours of the 
purple. The Caesar was generally invested also with 
the government of part of the empire as viceroy. Later 
still, the style of Augustus was granted after the same 
fashion, with a joint instead of a subordinate authority ; 
still the senior Augustus was considered the head of the 
whole empire. 

In one point the republican principle remained to 
the last. The emperor reigned by election, not by here- 
ditary right. Under all forms of sovereignty, since the 
expulsion of the Tarquins, Eome, republican, imperial, 
papal, never admitted the principle of hereditary suc- 
cession. The Ceesarship was never a simple birthiight ; 
it was conferred by the sovereign and approved by the 
senate. When there was no Caesar, the senate claimed 
to elect the Augustus. Here, however, they came into 
collision with the army, who could not forget the origin of 
the imperator. The legions persisted in saluting their 
favourite commander, and the contest fell to the decision 
of arms. On the death of Pertinax (a.d. 193) the 
soldiers put the purple up to sale, and forced the pur- 

1 The full style was at first written thus : — Imperator Caesar Doini- 
tianus Augustus. With the thirteenth emperor, the proper family name 
was introduced instead of Ciesar, and other honorific appellations were 
assumed. The first Christian sovereign wrote himself t: Imperator Victor 
Maximus Constantinus Augustus." 



12 



THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 



chaser on the senate at the point of the sword. Fifty 
years later, as many as thirty military emperors appeared 
in the field, during the captivity of "Valerian. Their 
discord encouraged the famous Zenobia to usurp the 
purple at Damascus, and Aurelian was glad to concede 
her the name and honours of Augusta. 

After this the usages of Oriental courts began to taint 
the air of the Palatine. The laurel crown was replaced by 
a jewelled diadem ; the military pallium expanded into a 
robe of flowing silk, embroidered with gold ; the once 
detested titles of lord and king were claimed without 
scruple. All who approached the imperial presence were 
required to prostrate themselves on the ground. Instead 
of the old frank salute of cheek or hand, the haughty 
Eoman learned to kiss his sovereign's foot, encased in a 
gorgeous slipper. The first to exact this degrading 
ceremonial was the slave-born Diocletian, a persecutor 
whose accession was stigmatised in Christian annals as 
the "era of the martyrs " (a.d. 284). It is at Borne alone, 
of all the courts of Europe, that the slavish homage still 
survives, and the monarch who demands it is the only 
one that is still raised by the suffrage of his fellows from 
servitude to the purple. Though never ceasing to per- 
secute the Gospel, thousands venerate him as the father 
and priest of Christendom, the sole successor of the 
apostles, and the Vicar of the Lord himself. 

Diocletian was the first to create a second Augustus to 
share the burdens of empire ; after that the emperors were 
seldom seen in Borne. Diocletian fixed his residence at 
Mcomedia, on the eastern side of the Bosphorus, while 
Maximian reigned at Milan, as Augustus of the "West. 
In these cities each abdicated the purple on the same day 
(a.d. 304) ; the first to plant cabbages at his birthplace 
in Dalmatia — an occupation in which he was wont to 
say that he then began to live, — the other to consume 



> 



CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. 



13 



himself with, repinings for the loss of a dignity which no 
intrigues were able to recover. 

The emperors, up to this time, had been all more or less 
persecutors of Christianity. Diocletian vowed to ex- 
tinguish it in the blood of its disciples : his retirement 
from the contest, worsted and despairing, was the first 
omen of the change about to pass on the state religion. 
Galerius, who succeeded in the East, was a still bitterer 
persecutor : the dawn came from the "West, where Con- 
stantius, the new Augustus, was " almost a Christian, " 
and in dying soon after encouraged his son to become 
one altogether. It was a joyful day to the long-afflicted 
disciples of the Cross, when they heard that Constantine 
was saluted Augustus by the legions at York (a.d. 
305). The struggle that immediately ensued was sharp 
but decisive. Maxentius, son of Maximian, being at 
Eome when the senate received the intelligence, was 
so exasperated by the arrival of the laurel-wreathed 
image of the new Augustus, that he seized on the city, 
and proclaimed himself emperor. Maximian rushed from 
his retirement, not to assist his son, but to reassert his 
own pretensions. Galerius, rejecting all the aspirants 
alike, took Severus and afterwards Licinius for his 
colleague, but dying soon after, left the East to the 
latter. 

Meantime the battle of theMilvian Bridge (a.d. 312) 
opened the gates of Eome to Constantine, who was 
already master of Helvetia, Gaul, and Britain. Max- 
entius perished in the engagement, and the senate 
joyfully proclaimed the victor. Giving his sister in 
marriage to Licinius, he was content to share the 
empire between them, till the other renewing the per- 
secution in the East, Constantine resolved to put himself 
once for all at the head of the Christians, and advance 
the banner of the Cross against his perfidious brother- 



14 



THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 



in-law. The struggle terminated in the re-union of the 
Eoman orb, under the sole monarchy of the first Christian 
emperor (a.d. 323). 

This was the second great revolution of the 
civilised world. Heathen Koine, while reducing every 
independent state within reach of its legions to the 
yoke of one empire, found it impossible to incorporate 
them into one religion. The deities, rites, and sacrifices 
of subject nations could not be dragged with their kings 
and chieftains in the conqueror's triumph. The gods of 
the capitol tolerated no barbarian associates, and the 
indigenous rite would have lost its significance in being 
divorced from the soil it was supposed to sanctify. 
The unity of the human race might be indicated in a 
community of political rights, but the central bond was 
wanting in the absence of a common object of worship. 
To the empire the central object was the Emperor : 
whence his image was not unnaturally associated with 
the idols. Temples and altars were built to Csesar, and 
his worship — to ardent politicians the most genuine of 
any — was the only common prop to which the various 
idolatries could cling for protection. 1 

All thoughtful minds must have distrusted a religion 
which could not trust itself. Altars that could ex- 
change compliments with the throne of Cassar offered 
little attraction to spirits in quest of God. The 
Oriental systems, which professed to know Him best, 
declined to subject their mysteries to imperial law. 
And it was from the East, to which all eyes had been long 
wistfully turned, that the New Man, the Central Light 
and Life, was revealed. The conquests of the Cassars had 
combined in their measure, with the cravings of philo- 
sophy and the utterances of the prophets, to prepare His 

1 See Ranke's "History of the Popes," i. 1. 



constantine's conversion. 



15 



way upon earth. The birth of Jesus Christ at this par- 
ticular stage of human affairs was not merely the most 
glorious phenomenon of universal history ; it was the seal 
of God impressed on the pre-appointecl fulness of time. 
He came to replace the failing oracles by the words of 
eternal life ; to reveal the universal hope to the newly- 
constituted State ; to initiate its broken populations into 
the Kingdom of Heaven. When He stirred the flame 
that still burned on the altar at J erusalem, it leapt up 
and lightened the earth like a sunbeam. 

The greatest obstacle to the progress of the new 
religion was not Jupiter or Isis, but Caesar. The old 
idolatries were already smitten and flying ; it was 
the recent usurper who gave combat to the Gospel, and 
felt himself assailed in its progress. Csesar's altar consum- 
mated the servitude of mankind through a political reunion 
of discordant superstitions. Ey refusing to burn incense 
to Coesar, Christianity proclaimed, as with the voice of a 
trumpet, the emancipation of the human soul. It drew a 
line between the things of Caesar and the things of God. 
Hence the emperors, ^who tolerated other forms of faith, 
had no mercy for Christianity. In their eyes, as in 
those of some modern politicians, it was not the rule of 
faith, the assent of conscience, the practical life in this 
world, or the expectations of another, which constituted 
religion: to them religion had but one act — "sacrifice 
to Caesar.' ' He who refused this must be an atheist. 

Eut now the emperor was himself a Christian. 
The date and extent of Constantine's conversion are 
indeed hard to be ascertained. His private character 
affords no satisfactory evidence of personal piety. 1 He 

1 Constantine, like the Czar Peter of Russia, put his eldest son to 
death, and actually inflicted the same penalty, which Peter only threatened, 
on his own wife. The cause was buried in mystery, but it would seem 
that the empress Fausta was the accuser of the Csesar, and was sacrificed 



16 



THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 



was never a partaker of the Sacrament which is the 
ordinary seal of Christian communion ; he was not even 
baptised till at the point of death. He himself dated 
his conversion from the victory of the Milvian Bridge, 
which secured him Eome and the western empire. He 
said that, previous to the engagement, there appeared to 
himself and the whole army, just above the sun, a cross of 
light, with the inscription — " Conquer by this;" 1 that 
in the night Christ appeared to him in a dream with 
the same symbol, commanding him to make a banner 
like it, which should protect him against all assail- 
ants. This story the emperor confirmed to Eusebius 
by an oath, after which the courtly historian demands, 
" who will refrain from giving credit to the narrative?" 2 
Nevertheless it is omitted from the histories of Sozomen 
and Bufnnus, and it was not supported by any eye- 
witness, though the entire army was said to have seen 
the vision. Pagan authors relate a vision of a celestial 
army fighting in the air, but they are silent on the 
cross in the heavens. 

It would seem, too, that as jOonstantine told the 
story at the time, the dream was the only marvel : the 

in turn to the revenge of the empress-mother Helena. Constantine lived 
to know that both accusations were false, and his enemies said he turned 
Christian because no other religion offered pardon for such enormous 
crimes. His remorse, which rendered the scene of blood intolerable, was 
one cause of his leaving Rome, but vengeance pursued him to the East. 
His last will (if not a forgery) accused his two brothers of poisoning him, 
and on this suspicion they were massacred, with seven others of the royal 
blood, by the enraged soldiery. A tenth fell a victim to the jealousy of 
Constantius at a later period, and the sole regret which that tyrant 
expressed on his death-bed was, that he had permitted Julian to live. 
This single survivor justified his own apostasy by the crimes of the first 
Christian emperor and his sons. 

1 The narrators differ as to the language, some giving the words in 
Latin, Jiac vince, others in Greek tout<£ vUa. Eusebius omits to determine 
this point. 

2 Vit. Const., i. 28. 



THE LABARUM. 



17 



cross in the sky was an after-thought, when the tale had 
been often told, and was thought to be in need of further 
embellishment. 1 

The standard referred to was undoubtedly displayed 
in the battle of the Milvian Bridge, as well as in all 
subsequent fields ; but it supplies no independent 
confirmation. It was simply a banner of purple silk, 
depending from a bar which obliquely crossed a long 
gilded spear. The spear was surmounted by a crown, in 
which the first two letters of the name of Christ Avere 
interwoven ; but the field of the flag was occupied by 
the heads of the emperor and his sons, and it was 
only the " initiated eyes" of Christian soldiers that 
would discern the sacred monogram at the top. The 
heathen might adore the emperor as of old, while the 
Christian looked above him to his Lord. 2 Neither this 
spear nor the banner resembled the alleged cross in the 
heavens, and it is not till the reign of Constantius that 
the coins supply the motto, " By this thou shalt 
conquer." The legend of the miraculous cross, however 
universally received in after ages, must be classed with 
the legion which have no historical foundation, and 
is altogether derogatory to the character and teaching 
of our blessed Lord. 3 

The fact appears to be that Const antine felt the value 
of securing the Christians to his side in the contest for 
the empire. They were now a numerous and influential 
party, alienated from his competitors by persecution, and 
already well disposed to himself. His father's experi- 
ence and example showed him the superior weight, even 
in worldly repute, of the Christian faith and morals. He 
had learned to despise the idols which Licinius vainly 

1 Lardner. 2 Milman's " History of Christianity," ii. 350. 

3 See the authors " Egypt from Alexander to Bonaparte, 1 ' p. 170, 
note. 

C 



18 



THE CHRISTIAN EXPIRE. 



invoked, and when the issue lay between them and the 
God of the Christians, Constantine cheerfully sided with 
the latter. The victory which crowned his first field 
decided his future policy ; and it is observable that all 
his proclamations refer to Christ as the giver of victory 
rather than of salvation and grace. 

That the religion by which he had profited so 
largely should partake of his triumph was only na- 
tural. It would be equally his policy to discourage 
and weaken the pagan priesthood. Still his earlier 
edicts went no farther than to recognise Christianity 
as a legal religion, to restore the property of which 
the churches had been unrighteously deprived, and 
to secure freedom and respect for Christian worship. 
A similar immunity was preserved to the heathen. 
The emperor's edict declares it to be untrue that 
he had abolished the temple rites ; he would gladly 
have persuaded all to forsake them, but the force of 
error was too strong, and acknowledging that only those 
whom God calls can acquiesce in His laws, and live 
holily and purely, he expressly commands that no one 
shall be injured in the cause of religion. 1 

Constantine did indeed gradually establish Christi- 
anity as the State religion, but there was no such sudden 
universal conversion as has sometimes been imagined. 
Rome itself continued openly and professedly pagan. 
The altar of Victory stood in the senate house all the 
reign of Constantine ; removed by Constantius and 
restored by Julian, it was only finally banished by 
Gratian, when Christianity had made considerable pro- 
gress. Even then above four hundred idol temples were 
left to the hundred thousand gods which once crowded 
the ancient capital; and it was not till a full century 
after Constantine that idolatry was prohibited by law. 

• Ens. Vit. Const., ii. 56, 60. 



CONSCIENCE IN RELIGION. 



19 



In truth, Constantine never went to the full 
extent of his recognised powers as Pont if ex Maximus of 
the Eoman empire. His predecessors not only founded 
temples and altars at the public cost, appointed and 
removed priests, prescribed sacrifices, and enrolled new 
deities, but they compelled everyone to the observance 
of their rites as matter of state law. Constantine was 
the first emperor who recognised a conscience in religion, 
because he was the first who believed in Divine Bevela- 
tion. It is not every private conviction, but only such 
as are based on the Word of God, which have a right 
to the sacred claim of conscience. The heathen who 
had no such word neither made the claim, nor under- 
stood it when advanced by others. With them religion 
was wholly a question of law and usage. So far 
from thinking any form of worship of Divine obligation, 
every people and district boasted their own rites, and 
all were held equally acceptable. 

Neither did they admit the connection between 
outward rites and inward belief. Every one must 
conform to the prescribed rite, but no one was re- 
quired to believe so much as the existence of the 
deity to whom it was offered. In point of fact, few 
of the educated classes did believe in the State gods, 
or in the future world of the authorised religion. Julius 
Csesar openly avowed his disbelief of both, when he 
voted in the senate to punish the Catiline conspirators with 
imprisonment rather than death, for death, he affirmed, 
was the end of all misery. 1 The audacity of such a 
defiance of established tenets was reproved by Cato, but 
the scepticism was too common to be seriously censured. 

No such questions were necessarily involved in the 
ceremonies performed by the priests, and guarded by 
law. They were content with the opus operatum; of 

1 Sail. Bell. Cat. 51. " Ultra neque cime neque gaudio locum esse.'" 

c 2 



20 



THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 



the spiritual result every one had his own opinion. 
The Divine nature, the immortality of the soul, the dis- 
tinctions of right and wrong — all that we now consider 
moral or religious truth — were in the province of the 
philosopher, not of the priest. The philosopher might 
despise the superstition of the priest, and yet conform 
without scruple to the requisition of the law. It was 
the chief ground of complaint against the Christians that 
they obstinately refused to sacrifice to Caesar, when they 
were at liberty to give their souls to Christ if they 
chose. In the Eoman empire, religion was not a question 
of theological truth, on which no one pretended to cer- 
tainty, but one of public law, on which there could 
be no dispute. 

These distinctions have to be borne in mind in order 
to realise the true nature of the revolution inaugurated 
by the accession of a Christian emperor. The State 
sacrifices offered by imperial command were replaced, as 
a matter of course, by Christian rites. Having the 
sole control of the public funds, without a shadow of that 
responsibility to the subject which belongs to a free state, 
the emperor would build and endow churches for his 
own religion. He would protect and dignify their 
ministers, give his assistance in the settlement of. Church 
questions, and lend all the power and influence of the 
head of the state to the propagation of the Gospel. 
Beyond this the first Christian emperor never advanced. 
His successors went farther as their religion acquired 
more and more political importance. Gratian refused 
to bear the customary title of Pont if ex Maximus, and 
Theodosius formally put the question in the senate 
whether Christ or Jupiter should be worshipped. 

By this time the Gospel had implanted the sense of 
conscience. A choice was to be made ; and a large 
majority having declared for Christianity, the heathen 



REMOVAL OF THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT. 



21 



temples were closed, the priesthood dissolved, and pagan 
rites proscribed as illegal. The bulk of the population 
was now, at least nominally, Christian ; and the decree 
was received in most places with popular acclamations. 

The first effect of imperial Christianity on Borne 
was to deprive the Eternal City of the seat of govern- 
ment by its permanent removal to a rival capital. 
Constantine longed for a "virgin city" — a resi- 
dence free from the idolatrous pollutions that tainted 
every valley, and grove, and height, of the Seven 
Hills of the Tiber. He determined to remove from 
Nicomedia to the edge of the strait, but being induced, 
to follow the course of an eagle, whose appearance was 
regarded as an omen, he crossed to the European 
side, where, more than nine centuries before, the Greek 
navigator Byzas, at the head of a feeble colony, had 
planted a republic which long defied the neighbouring 
monarchies. 

The town was named Byzantium. Its natural ad- 
vantages are such that Xapoleon Bonaparte declared 
them able to ensure the command of the world. A 
triangular peninsula, forming the eastern extremity 
of Europe, projects into the strait at the point where 
the narrow channel of the Thracian Bosphorus, after 
a course of sixteen miles from the Black Sea, opens 
into the Propontis or Sea of Marmora. The northern 
side of this triangle is washed for seven miles by 
a gulf receiving the Sweet Waters of the Biver Lycus, 
and denominated the Golden Horn. This noble harbour 
afforded a safe anchorage for 1,200 ships, unaffected by 
tides, and was easily closed by a chain at the mouth. At 
the eastern extremity, where Constantine placed his 
palace, and Justinian reared the church of St. Sophia, the 
peninsula looks upon the adjoining shore of Asia, at the 
distance of three-quarters of a mile.. It was here that 



22 



THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 



Darius crossed on his bridge of boats. 1 To defend the new 
city from a similar invasion, the Asiatic promontory was 
crowned with two castles, which rendered the neighbour- 
ing town of Chrysopolis (Scutari) an outwork and 
suburb of the capital. The south of the triangle lies 
open to the sunny Propontis, which, at a distance of 
100 miles, contracts again into the straits of the Helles- 
pont. A winding channel of sixty miles, with an 
average breadth of only three, completes the defences of 
this remarkable city, and at the same time opens a com- 
munication with the commerce of the Mediterranean, and 
the world. 

Across the base of the triangle, where it joins the 
continent, Constantine drew a wall of prodigious thick- 
ness, one end resting on the Golden Horn, and the other 
at the castle of the Seven Towers on the Propontis. 
The enclosure contained five of the Seven Hills in which 
the new capital vied with the old ; a sixth was enclosed 
by Theodosius (a.d. 413), and the seventh by Heraclius, 
two centuries later. The entire length of the city, from 
the Golden Gate to the eastern extremity, was about 
three Eoman miles ; the circumference measured be- 
tween ten and eleven ; and, taking in the subiubs of 
Pera and Galata, on the other side of the harbour, the 
circuit was sixteen Greek or fourteen Eoman miles, — an 
area far inferior to that of Eome, of modern London, and 
even of Paris. 

The city was constructed with a rapidity and magni- 
ficence attainable only by the master of the Eoman 
empire. Two millions and a half of money were allotted 
to the walls, the porticoes, and the aqueducts. An inex- 
haustible supply of white marble was at. hand in the 
little island of Proconnesus. The cities of Greece and 



J Herod. iy. 85. 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 



23 



Asia were ruthlessly despoiled of their art treasures for 
the embellishment of the buildings and streets. A 
colossal statue of Apollo, by Phidias, with the head of 
Constantine substituted for the god of day, was raised 
on a pillar of porphyry 120 feet high, in the centre of the 
Forum. In the Hippodrome stood a pillar of brass, 
representing three serpents twining together, which had 
once borne the golden tripod consecrated in the temple 
of Delphi on the defeat of Xerxes. An obelisk from 
some Egyptian temple rose in the area. The " palace" 
was scarcely less magnificent than the imperial residence 
on the Palatine hill, from which the name was borrowed. 
The very baths were adorned with lofty columns, marbles 
of various colours, and more than threescore statues of 
bronze. About a century after its foundation, the city 
contained a capitol or school of learning, a circus, 2 
theatres, 8 public and 153 private baths, 52 porticoes, 
5 granaries, 8 aqueducts, 4 halls of justice, 14 churches, 
14 palaces, and 4,388 houses, which, for size and beauty, 
deserved to be distinguished from the multitude of 
plebian habitations. 1 

To populate his new capital the founder invited 
patricians and opulent senators from Eome. Some 
were allured by the attractions of ofiice and court 
honours, others by grants of lands conditional on main- 
taining town-houses. Thousands flocked to the seat 
of power, luxury, and commerce; the narrow streets 
were choked by the throng; the area of the city was 
increased by new foundations thrown out into the sea, 
and in a hundred years the new capital disputed with 
the old the pre-eminence in population and wealth. The 
foundations were begun in the 23rd year of the emperor's 
reign (a.d. 328), and in two years the city was finished 



1 Dec. and Fall, chap. xvii. 



24 



THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 



and dedicated. The emperor removed from Mcomedia, 
and proclaiming it to be henceforth the seat of govern- 
ment, commanded it to be called New Rome. The edict 
was engraved on a colnmn of white marble in the 
Strategium, and the name was made use of in official 
documents, but the courtiers and the populace called it 
the City of Constantine, and Constantinople it continues 
to this day. The Turkish appellation, Istamboul, is only 
a barbarous corruption of the Greek phrase, which, as at 
Athens, Rome, and modern London, distinguished the 
capital as " the city" of the nation. 1 

This new capital was the centre of a new system of 
government, in which the simple manners of Rome were 
lost in a blaze of oriental splendour and servility. In 
place of the few official clistinetions of the republic, the 
emperor established a " Divine Hierarchy " (as it was pro- 
fanely called), extending from the steps of the throne 
down to the meanest official. Within the favoured 
circle, each had his exact rank minutely subordinated ; 
outside it, as in eastern despotisms, all were either the 
slaves or the victims of power. 2 The principal digni- 
taries were addressed by the titles of " your Sincerity," 
"your Gravity," "your Excellency," "your Emi- 
nence," " your sublime and wonderful Magnitude," 
" your illustrious and magnificent Highness." Their 
patents, emblazoned with curious emblems, were carried 
before them in public ; each had his exact precedence, 
and elaborate distinctions of dress to denote it. 3 

The empire was divided into four administrative 

1 Attic use appropriated the word aarv to Athens, as with the Romans. 
Urbs was always Rome. In the same way the peasants of Thrace, on their 
way to market, said they were going ic rap f36\o>, which the Turks cor- 
rupted into Tstamboul. 

- The Tdchin in Russia very much resembles Constantine's State 
Hierarchy. See " Russia, Ancient and Modern/* p. 319. 

3 Decl. and Fall, cap. xvii. 



THE STATE HIERARCHY. 



25 



departments, called prcetoria, the Prefects of which at- 
tended the emperor like modern Secretaries of State. 
Their orders were issued to fourteen Vicars, or governors 
of dioceses. These again were subdivided into 120 pro- 
vinces, the lieutenant-governors of which were variously 
denominated Pro-consuls, Consulars, Correctors, and 
Presidents. The two Homes, exempt from the praetorian 
prefect, were granted prefects of their own, with a sub- 
urbicarian jurisdiction, extending (it is stated) a hundred 
miles round the city. 

All these civil officers united the judicial and executive 
powers, the military command being carefully kept apart. 
The system was one of strict subordination, with an appeal 
at each step to the superior authority, whose word was 
the law. Thus the prefect was not only secretary of state, 
but the supreme court of justice for his preetorium, and 
one of them alone found employment for 150 advocates. 

The Civil Service was divided into three ranks, with 
the titles of Illustrious, Eespectable, and Honourable. The 
first comprised the prefects, seven great officers of the 
imperial household, 1 and the masters-general of the forces. 
The second included the exarchs and pro-consuls, with 
the counts and dukes of the army. The lower governors 
and magistrates enjoyed the third designation. 

The title of Patrician, with the rank of Illustrious, 
bestowed, like the modern dignity of privy councillor, 
on retired ministers and other objects of imperial 
favour, carried the privilege of access to the emperor. 

1 1. The Prefect of the sacred bed-chamber, or Lord High Chamberlain : 
he was an eunuch, and though discharging menial duties, was the chief 
officer of State. 2. The Master of Offices, equivalent to the Lord High 
Steward. 3. The Quaestor, who (if the eniperor used a seal) might be 
called the Lord Chancellor. 4. The Count of the Sacred Largesses, i.e., 
Lord High Treasurer, 5, The Count of the Private Estate — (Privy Seal. 
Woods, Forests, &c.) 6. Two Counts of Domestics, commanding the 
bodyguard, i.e.. Gold Sticks in Waiting. 



26 



THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 



Still greater distinctions were assigned to the two Con- 
suls, the last shadows of the buried republic. This was 
the highest honour attainable by a subject. The consuls 
were created annually by imperial rescript. On the first 
of January they assumed their purple silk robes em- 
broidered with gold, and went in procession from the 
palace to the capitol. The old axes and fasces were 
borne before them by lictors ; they were attended by the 
state functionaries attired as senators, and ascending 
their curule chairs they signalised their accession to office 
by manumitting a slave introduced for the purpose. 
This was their one act of power. All that remained 
was to entertain the public with festivities, which lasted 
several days, and to leave their names in the legal date 
of the current year. 

The army, of which the emperor was always the 
chief, was commanded under him by two Masters-general 
of horse and foot respectively : these were afterwards 
increased to eight. Under their orders were thirty-five 
Generals or Dukes, decorated with gold belts ; ten of 
these were further dignified with the new court rank 
of Count. The legions which were anciently a 
force of 6,000 strong, were reduced to battalions of 
1,000 or 1,500 men. Under Constantine the entire 
army amounted to 645,000 men. 

After his death one of the four prsetoria was sup- 
pressed, and its dioceses divided between Italy and 
the East. The territorial distribution of the empire 
then stood as follows : — 

Eastern Empire. 
I. Prastorium of The East : Six Dioceses — Provinces 

1. Egypt 1 (Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis) . . 6 

2. The East 2 (Syria, Palestine, Arabia) . . .15 

1 The Vicar of this ancient kingdom was called the Auguslal Prefect. 

2 The Vicar here bore the title of Count of the East. • 



DISTRIBUTION OF THE PROVINCES. 27 

Provinces 

3. Pont us (Eastern Provinces of Asia Minor) . 11 

4. Asia (Western ditto) 11 

5. Thrace (Boumelia and Bulgaria) .... 6 



6. East Illyricum, i.e., Dacia and Greece, com- 
prising Modern Wallachia, Moldavia, Tran- 
sylvania, Macedon, Thessaly, and Greece . 12 

Western Empire. 
II. Prsetorium of Italy : Four Dioceses — 

1. Rome, containing the Ten Subiirbicarian 
Provinces (Campania, Apulia, Lucania, 
Etruria, Umbria, Picennm, Sicily, Sardinia, 



Corsica, Valeria) 10 

2. Italy (rest of Italy, Helvetia, and Ehastia) . 7 

3 . Wes tern Illyricum (Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, 

and Hungary) 7 

4. Africa (Proconsular Africa, Numiclia, Mauri- 

tania, and modern Barbary) 6 

III. Prsetorium of Gaul: Three Dioceses — 

1. Britain (England) 5 

2. Gaul (France, Netherlands, and part of 

Germany) 17 

3. Hispania (Spain and Portugal) 7 



120 

The outline and nomenclature of this imperial con- 
stitution long survived the empire, and may still be 
traced in the titles, dignities, and offices of the existing 
states of Europe. Its chief interest to us lies in the 
fact that the ecclesiastical organisation of all existing 
episcopal Churches was formed on the same model. 
The distinction between secular and spiritual au- 
thority had never yet been clearly recognised. As 
the heathen emperors directed the religious cere- 
monies of the state, so the Christians under heathen 
rule committed their temporal affairs to the arbitration 



28 



THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 



of their pastors. They would have been afraid to 
invoke the notice of a persecuting magistrate, even if 
their religion had not forbidden them " to go to law 
before the unbelievers." 1 Elected by the free choice of 
ministers and people, the chief pastor enjoyed the full 
confidence of his flock ; he was, in fact as well as name, 
their father, Mend, and representative. In his little 
synod he heard and adjudicated disputes after the Gospel 
rule, 2 and the contumacious were simply excluded from 
the congregation. If they wished for re-admission they 
must submit to the judgment of the Church. Bishops 
so constituted were naturally the mouthpieces of their 
flocks, whenever it was safe and expedient to approach 
the public authorities : in turn they were held respon- 
sible for their taxes and good behaviour. A similar 
state of things still exists among the Christian subjects 
of the Ottoman Empire, and has the same effect of uniting 
ecclesiastical and secular authority in the bishop. 

The bishops were originally of equal power, as 
fellow ministers in the Gospel of Christ ; but when a 
parish (as the bishop's district was called) 3 required to 
be subdivided, the mother church (metropolis) retained 
a general superintendence over the daughters. The 
metropolitan bishop presided at the meetings of his 
brethren, and in elections to a vacant charge he was 
referred to as the common adviser and moderator. 
When there was no recognised metropolis, the meetings 
of neighbouring bishops were presided over by the 
senior bishop. 4 The advantages of union were so mani- 
fest that a bishop seldom acted without consulting his 

« 2 Cor. vi. 1-6. 2 Matt, xviii. 15. 17. 

3 A bishop's charge was called his parochia, i.e., the district round his 
house ; diocese was a State word of later date, and signified a union of 
many bishoprics. There is no example in the primitive Church of such 
extensive dioceses as are now unhappily common under a single bishop. 

4 Ens. H. E. v. 23 — Valesius's note. 



ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 29 

own flock in the synod of the parish, and his brethren 
of the same nation or province in the synod of bishops. 
Hence we meet with a very early rule, that " the 
bishops of every nation should know their primate and 
esteem him as head." 1 This rule is referred to by the 
First (Ecumenical Council (a.d. 325) as of ancient 
observance, and every Church is declared entitled to its 
own usages. 2 

This simple organisation, springing out of the 
natural divisions of nation and language, and adapted to 
the circumstances of every people, was gradually swal- 
lowed up, after the union of Church and State, in a great 
centralised hierarchy copied from the secular administra- 
tion. The metropolitans assumed ecclesiastical authority 
equivalent to that of the provincial presidents in the 
state. The bishop of the chief city in the secular 
diocese aspired to rule the metropolitans as the state 
Vicar did the presidents. These prelates were called 
patriarchs, or popes, — titles afterwards limited to the 
principal capitals of the empire, where the bishops 
engrossed the supremacy of the whole Church, like 
the praetorian prefect in the State. Over all, the 
emperor, though not clothed with spiritual functions, 
assumed what he called an " external bishopric." 3 He 
assembled councils, granted titles and jurisdictions, 
received appeals, enquired into abuses, brought offenders 
to trial and deposition, and exercised a potential voice 
in the appointment to bishoprics. 

The ecclesiastical hierarchy developed itself more 
fully in the East than in the West. The bishop of 
Alexandria, the genuine metropolis of Egypt and Libya, 

1 Ap. Can. xxxiv. The Apostolical canons, though not the work 
either of the Apostles, or as some pretend of Clement their fellow- 
labourer, were the general code of the Church in the second and third 
centuries. — Beveridge. 

- Con. Nic. Can. vi. 3 Soc. E. H. i. 9. 



30 



THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 



ruled his hundred bishops with patriarchal authority 
under the title of Pope. The " diocese of the East" 
obeyed the patriarch of Antioch ; those of Pontus, Asia, 
Thrace, and Illyricum were subjugated, though not 
without many a struggle, to the new imperial patri- 
archate of Constantinople. The patriarch of Jerusalem 
enjoyed the title in honour of the Holy City, and had 
precedence in the councils, but his jurisdiction was never 
more than metropolitan. 1 

In the West the bishop of Borne ruled the suburbican 
provinces, with the Alexandrian title of Pope. The bishop 
of Milan was the independent metropolitan of Northern 
Italy, and, on account of the imperial residence in his 
city, the great ecclesiastic of the West. 2 The bishop or 
pope of Carthage held a similar position in proconsular 
Africa, the rest of the African Churches preserving 
the primacy of the senior bishop. Throughout Gaul, 
Britain, and Spain the metropolitans of the several 
provinces kept their independence. Leo the Great, 
in writing to the Prench bishops, expressly dis- 
claimed the right of obtaining them, 3 and there is 
no instance of its being claimed for Eome down to 
the sixth century. In Britain the Eoman primacy 
was never heard of till the mission of Augustine 
(a.d. 686). 4 

1 Nic. Cone. Can. vii. The metropolitan city of Palestine was the 
imperial capital Csesarea, and its privileges are expressly reserved in the 
canon. Nevertheless, the honorary rank accorded to the Holy City eventually 
supplanted the other. The rank assigned to Constantinople was probably 
intended also to be honorary, since Heraclea was the old metropolis of the 
Thracian province ; but in all these questions the imperial will was 
supreme. 

2 Milman's " History of Christianity,' 1 iii. 10. 

3 Leo, ep. lxxxix. This right, involving all other ecclesiastical powers, 
practically excluded any intervention from other quarters beyond 
brotherly counsel. (Nic. Con. Can. iv.) 

4 Britain was subdued to Christ, "even where inaccessible to the 
Romans," by the middle of the second century. (Tert. Adv. Jud. c. vii.) 



GROWTH OF PRELACY. 



31 



The process of these usurpations is plainly traceable in 
the acts of the first three (Ecumenical Councils. At Mcsea 
(a.d. 325) we read of no higher jurisdiction than the 
metropolitan, which is to be obeyed at Alexandria, Borne, 
Antioch, and in the other provinces according to ancient 
usage (Can. vi.). At Constantinople (a.d. 381), the 
same rank is granted to the imperial city (built in 
the interval) with precedence next to Borne, for the 
reason that it is "New Borne" (Can. iii.). At 
Chalcedon (a.d. 451), the patriarch of Constantinople is 
sanctioned in extending his authority over the dioceses 
of Pontus and Asia, with the churches among the bar- 
barians (Can. xxviii.), and further empowered to receive 
appeals from other patriarchates (Can. ix.). The reason 
for these extraordinary powers is declared to be the 
translation of the empire, but neither Borne nor 
Alexandria ever consented to these canons. 

The metropolitans reduced under this yoke lost their 
old title of patriarchs, and were denominated Exarchs, a 
word which, in the Greek Church, still signifies a deputy. 
Archbishop was a title of honour conferred by the em- 
peror, and properly without any spiritual jurisdiction : at 
the Council of Chalcedon it was applied to the Boman 
prelate. Honorary titles, however (as exemplified in the 
patriarchs of Jerusalem and Constantinople), have a 
strong tendency to convert themselves into substantial 
power. * 

A Church establishment, endowed and privileged by 
law, implies the supremacy of the law to secure 
the due execution of the trust. The emperor was as 

The silence of Eusebius discredits the story told by Bede (i. 4) of a mission 
sent from Pope Eleutherius (a.d. 176—192). There can be little doubt that 
Christianity was introduced into England (as the population was) from 
Gaul, probably by the agency of Irenseus, bishop of Lyons (a.d. 180). He 
was a disciple of Poly carp, who had been instructed by the Apostle John. 



32 



THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 



necessarily at the head of the ecclesiastical, as of the civil 
and military, establishments of the empire. Power and 
property annexed to spiritual ministrations may be 
abused as well as those of lay functionaries. The 
imperial duty was to hear the complaint and enforce a 
remedy. Constantine was the last man to divest himself 
of the government of all estates of the realm, or to 
refuse the obligation of doing justice to all classes of his 
subjects. On the other hand, the Christian emperor was 
not entitled, like the heathen, to officiate in religious 
offices, or to decide on the faith received by revelation, 
and preached for the salvation of souls. He could 
neither give nor take away the Christian ministry; 
neither could the Church abandon the right, vindicated at 
so great a cost against paganism, to obey God rather than 
man. Constantine proposed to meet the necessity of the 
case by distinguishing between the internal and the 
external government of the Church. The former, compre- 
hending all questions of doctrine, sacraments, and 
spiritual discipline, he yielded to the ecclesiastical 
hierarchy : what he assumed to himself was to see that 
the ecclesiastics did their duty according to the Church 
laws. In this sense he called himself " bishop of the 
bishops." It was a new office, extrinsic to the spiritual 
function, and designed to protect it alike from attack 
and abuse. 1 

In this capacity the emperor summoned the councils 
called General, but whose proper appellation is (Ecu- 
menical, or councils of the Empire. The highest 
prelate could assemble only the bishops within his own 
jurisdiction ; the emperor convoked the representative 
Christianity of the Eoman world. The assembled fathers 
were to debate and decide according to the Word of God ; 



» Eus. V. C i. 44. Soc. E. H., i. 9. 



CHURCH AND STATE. 



33 



the emperor was there to keep order and enforce the 
decree. 

The immediate effect of this organisation was to 
cover the empire with a network of religions agencies, 
which powerfully advanced the conversion of the heathen, 
and the edification of the Christian flock. Other results, 
however, followed which had been little calculated npon. 
The bnrst of imperial favour, which now took the place 
of persecution, crowded the churches with merely nominal 
converts. These undisciplined flocks were not to be 
trusted with the election of then pastors. The old 
metropolitan power of approving and ordaiiiing was ex- 
tended into a claim to appoint the bishop. Offices once 
only a step to martyrdom began to excite the ambition or 
avarice of the worldly-minded. Litigation increased, 
and men objected to be stripped of privileges which had 
become valuable by the sentence of an obscure consis- 
tory. Offenders refused to submit ; and when the 
complications of heresy were added, the appeals became 
numerous and persistent. 

All tended to increase the power of the higher 
prelates, and who was to control these but the 
emperor? To enforce their decisions he had to fine, 
imprison, or exile his subjects : these were his only 
weapons. Eoman justice forbade them to be used till 
he had ascertained the propriety of the sentence. Two 
enormous evils resulted to the State and to the Church : 
on the one side, ecclesiastical censures, directed against 
errors in faith and morals, were attended by heavy 
temporal penalties ; on the other hand, the civil 
power intruded itself into the domain of religion and 
conscience. 

These unforeseen consequences were serious enough. 
Constantine was not guilty of the " Fatal Donation," for 
which the papacy reveres, and the poet reproaches, his 

D 



34 THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 



memory. 1 The legend, that he bestowed Borne and Italy 
on the bishop Sylvester as a baptismal fee (a.d. 324), is, 
indeed, as old as the eighth century ; and the font, with 
a painting of the baptism, are exhibited in the Sistine 
baptistery, near the Lateran ; but contemporary history 
has no allusion to any such endowment. A law in the 
Theodosian Code proves that Constantine was at Thes- 
salonica at the time assigned, and it is certain that 
Sylvester was not the minister, nor Eome the place, of 
the emperor's baptism. Eusebius gives a full account of 
that ceremony, which took place at Nicomeclia, but a 
short time before the emperor's death, and more than a 
year after Sylvester's. 2 

Constantine never intended that his bishops should 
be princes : they were mostly poor men whose ambition 
was limited to spiritual and ecclesiastical victories. 
But great passions can be excited even by unworldly 
motives, and the emperor early experienced the troubles, 
anxieties, and perplexities of Church government. The 
clergy and people of Carthage elected their archdeacon 
CaBcilian to the vacant bishopric, and concluded the 
consecration before the arrival of the jNumidian bishops, 
who claimed a share in the ceremonial. The bishops 
summoned Csecilian to explain this affront, and on 
his refusing to obey they proceeded to examine into 
the consecration, and pronounced it void by reason 
of the participation of one Felix, alleged to be a 
traditor? Not content with this, they annulled the 



1 " Ah ! Constantine, to how much ill gave birth 
Not thy conversion, but that fatal dower 
Which the first wealthy Father gained from thee." 

Dante DelV Infern. xix. 115. 

2 Vit. Const, iv. 62. 

8 This was the name applied to those who, in the persecution of Dio- 
cletian, had given up the sacred books to be burnt. They were universally 
excluded from communion till restored as penitents. 



THE DONATISTS. 



35 



election on the ground of the archdeacon's former mis- 
conduct, and finally elected and consecrated another 
person by their own authority. The leaders in this 
manifest usurpation were two bishops, both named 
Donatus, and from them the schism received its appella- 
tion. Caecilian and his party keeping possession of the 
churches, the Donatists complained to the emperor, who, 
at their request referred the matter to the bishops of 
Gaul and Italy. Nineteen of these met at Borne under 
the presidency of Melchiacles, the bishop, and decided in 
favour of Crecilian (a.d. 313). The accusation against 
Felix was relegated to the pro-consul of Africa, who 
reported that the fact was not sustained by the 
evidence. 

The questions, both of law and fact, were thus investi- 
gated by competent tribunals, but the Donatists objected 
to both. Seventy bishops of Kumiclia had affirmed the 
truth of their charges on the spot, and they were not to 
be overruled by a few foreigners at Borne. The emperor 
proeured them a second hearing at the council of Aries 
(a.d. 314), composed of bishops from Italy, Gaul, 
Germany, Spain, and Britain ; and again the Donatists 
were defeated. Thereupon they appealed to the emperor's 
own judgment ; and Constantine, though indignant at 
such unchristian pertinacity, 1 could not refuse their 
demand. He sat in person at Milan (a.d. 316), and, 
after a full hearing, confirmed the two previous 
decisions. 

The Donatists next assailed their own judge with 
charges of corruption and favouritism. Constantine re- 
taliated by depriving them of their churches and driving 
then leaders into banishment. Some were even put to 

1 i; Oh ! the outrageous audacity of fanaticism," exclaimed the weary 
monarch; "they have actually put in an appeal, like tlie Gentiles.'''' — 
Soc. Ecclesiastical History, ii. 40. Note by Valesius. 



36 



THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 



death for sedition. These proceedings only aggravated and 
extended the fend. The fierce African populace took 
part against the government, and a set of savages, termed 
Circumcelliones, perambulated the province, carrying 
rapine and death to the Caecilian party. The troops 
were called out, and a civil war was at hand, when 
Constantine took the advice of his officers in Africa, and, 
repealing all his edicts, left each party to follow the 
bishop it liked best. The troubles continued for thirteen 
years, and, after all, were only put down by force of 
arms. The Circumcelliones were defeated in a pitched 
battle with the imperial troops, and the Donatists then 
falling under the full vengeance of the incensed monarch, 
were expelled and scattered with cruel severity. Still 
they had four hundred bishops at the close of the 
century ; and in spite of the vehement opposition of 
Augustine, they only disappeared at last from dissensions 
among themselves. 

The singularity of this schism was that it involved 
no point of doctrine or discipline. The whole arose 
on matters of fact asserted without evidence, and dis- 
proved before the proper tribunal. The schismatics 
refused to accept the acquittal of Felix, because their 
own bishops were committed to an assertion of his guilt. 
His guilt contaminated the party on whom he laid 
hands, and all who communicated with either. Hence 
every one who supported Csecilian was deprived of the 
Spirit, and ipso facto excommunicated. The Catholic 
Church was reduced to their own party. Against this 
destructive logic no ecclesiastical decisions had any 
weight ; and though the first to demand judgment from 
the civil magistrate on an ecclesiastical dispute, judgment 
was no sooner pronounced than they flew to arms to 
resist it. 

So difficult is the task of constituting a tribunal 



FANATICISM. 



37 



upon earth, spiritual or temporal, which shall silence 
religions convictions, however mistaken ! So easy is 
it, by attempts at violent repression, to give force and 
dignity to a fanaticism, which, if left to itself, expires of 
neglect ! 



CONTEMPOBABY SUCCESSIONS 



WESTERN EMPIRE. 


EASTERN 


EMPIRE. 


A.D. 


Emperors. 


Popes of Kome. 


Emperors. 


Patriarchs of 
Constantinople. 


395 


Honorius 




Arcadius. 




397 









John Chrysostoni. 


398 




Anastasius I. 






402 




Innocent I. 






403 






Arcadius and 
Thedosius n. 




404 








Arsacius. 


406 








Atticus. 


408 






Thedosius n. 




417 




Zosimus. 






418 


Honorius and 








419 


Constantius 


Boniface I. 






423 


Valentinian in. 


Gelestine I. 






426 








Sisinnius i. 


428 








Nestorius. 


431 


Third Oecumenical Council at Ephesus. 






432 




Sixtus in. 




Maximian. 


434 








Proclus. 


440 




Leo i. 






447 








Flavian. 


449 








Anatolius. 


450 






Marcian. 




451 


Fourth (Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon. 




455 


Maximus, Avitus. 








457 




Leo. i. 




458 


Majoriantis 






Gennadius. 


461 


Severus n. 


Hilary. 






467 


Anthemius 


Simplicius. 






471 






Acacius. 


472 


Olybrius. 








473 


Glycerius. 








474 


Julius Nepos ... 




Zeno, 




475 


Romulus Augus- 
tulus. 








476 


Odoacer, King of 










Italy. 








483 
488 


Felix ii. 




Flavita. 


486 








Euphemius. 


491 






Anastasius. 


492 




Gelasius I. 






493 


Theodoric. 








495 








Macedonius. 


496 




Anastasius n. 






498 




Symmachus. 






511 








Timothy. 


514 




Hormisdas. 






518 






Justin i , 


John n. 


520 








Epiphanius. 


523 




John I. 




526 


Athalaric 


Felix in. 






527 






Justinian. 




530 




Boniface II. 






532 




John n. 






534 


Theodatus. 








535 




Agapetus I. ... 




Anthemius. 


536 


Justinian, Emp. 


Silverius 




Mennas. 


537 


Yigilius. 







CHAPTER II. 

FALL OF THE WEST. 

Division of the Empire — Milan — Ravenna — Invasion of Alaric — Triumph 
at Borne — Abolition of the Gladiators — Revolt in Britain — Second 
Invasion of the Goths — Their, Rise and Frogress — Three Divisions — 
Vandals, Franks, Alemans — Ravages of the Barbarians — Fulfilment of 
Frophecy — Capitulation of Rome — Sack of the City — Abandonment 
of Britain — Augustine's City of God — Vandal Corsairs — Valen- 
tinian III, — Second Sack of Rome — The Temple Spoils — Irruption of 
the Huns — Attila — Majorianus — Anthemius — Third Sack of Rome — 
Glycerins — Augustulus — Odoacer — Fall of Rome — Kingdom of the 
Heruli — Of the Ostrogoths — Excesses — Intervention from the East — 
Belisarius — Extinction of Gothic Kingdom. 

On the death of Theodosius the Great (a.d. 395), the 
empire was divided, by the provisions of his will, be- 
tween his sons Arcadiiis and Honorius. This partition, 
which had been more or less in force from the time of 
Diocletian and Maxim ian, was now designed to be perma- 
nent, but, taking place just when the most united front 
was required against the barbarians, it proved the 
destruction both of East and "West. Koine had ceased 
to be the seat of government from the time of Constan- 
tine. The western capital was Milan, which quite 
eclipsed the ancient city in political importance, and, from 
the celebrity of its schools, was called the " Athens of the 
"West." Here Ambrose the prefect became by popular 
acclamation Ambrose the bishop (a.d. 374). Here he 
erected a moral power, which rebuked the imperial 
tyranny, and a form of worship which rivalled and ex- 
celled the Koman liturgy. The great African bishop 



40 



FALL OF THE "WEST. 



Augustine passed from one to the other with the freedom 
which was then the glory of the Catholic communion. 
At Milan he sang the Ambrosian chants with the 
Milanese, and when at Borne he prayed as the Eomans 
did. There was a third ritual in his native Africa, all 
acknowledging " one Lord, one faith, one baptism." 

Theodosius died at Milan, and was followed by 
Ambrose in two years. The great emperor's death was 
the signal of rebellion to the whole Gothic nation. 
Alaric, a descendant of the race which gave its name to 
the Baltic, 1 after threatening Constantinople, burst into 
Greece, and wasted its valleys with fire and sword. 
Being bought off with the command of Illyricum, he 
thence invaded Italy, and, from the defenceless palace of 
Milan, Honorius fled to a safer retreat in the marshes of 
Bavenna. This strong fortress on the Adriatic sea was 
ever after the imperial and royal capital of Italy. 

The skill and courage of Stilicho gained his falling lord 
a triumph at Borne for the expulsion of the Goths (a. d. 404). 
On this occasion the city enjoyed the rare honour of the 
imperial residence for several months, 2 and Honorius 
signalised it by an edict abolishing the games of the 
amphitheatre, with the hecatombs of human sacrifices 
that fell in the combats of the gladiators. The ruins 
of the Coliseum still attest the beauty and majesty of 
the noble building, where 100,000 spectators looked down 
upon the arena, while pagan Borne glutted its thirst for 
blood to the full, and men fought with wild beasts, or, 
fiercer than any beasts, with each other. The highest and 
most refined, the priests and vestal virgins, the purple- 
robed patrician, and the Boman matron with her children, 
crowded to these cruel sports. They applauded when 

1 Balli, " bold," a name long preserved in Languedoc under the cor 
rupted form of Baux.— Dec. and Fall, cap. xxx. 

2 It was only the fourth imperial visit since Constantine. 



THE GOTHS AND VANDALS. 



41 



the Christian was thrown to the lions, and, with laughing 
countenances, turned down their thumbs as a signal to 
the victorious gladiator to slaughter his fallen com- 
panion. 1 As the eyes of the despairing victim travelled 
round the circus in quest of mercy, the ladies gaily 
chatting with each other would exhibit the fatal sign 
with less concern than is now exhibited for a song at 
the opera. 

The abolition of this frightful sport was the true 
triumph of Honorius. His military honours soon faded. 
The legions in Britain having raised a common soldier to 
the purple, from the accident of his possessing the name 
of Constantine, the usurper received the submission of 
Gaul and Spain, and Honorius only saved his throne by 
consenting to divide it with this ignoble rival. 

A second irruption of the Goths, under the pagan 
king Eadagaisus, was repelled by Stilicho (a.d. 406), but 
two years after he was obliged to assemble the senate 
and propose that Attila should be entrusted with the 
defence of the city. Their remonstrances were in vain ; 
no alternative remained. The senators reluctantly de- 
creed the Gothic king four thousand pieces of gold for 
his services ; but one of their number had the foresight 
to avow that it was a treaty of servitude rather than of 
peace. 

The Goths and Yandals were divisions of a great 
nation, who formerly dwelt in Scandinavia. Cross- 
ing the Baltic into Germany some time before the 
Christian era, they migrated through Prussia and the 

1 At Trajan's triumph for the defeat of the Dacians, the games were 
exhibited daily for four months, during which 10,000 gladiators fought, and 
11,000 wild beasts were killed. — Bio. xlviii., 15. When a gladiator fell, the 
victor looked to the spectators for directions. If they held their thumbs 
upwards his life was spared; if the reverse, the conqueror murdered 
him on the spot, and the body was dragged away to make room for 
another game. 



42 



FALL OF THE WEST. 



Ukraine in the middle of the third century, and signa- 
lised their appearance in the Koman provinces by the 
sack of Philippopolis, and the defeat and death of the 
Emperor Decius (a.d. 251). After much fighting, they 
were allowed a settlement in Dacia, and there forsook 
their idols Woden and Thor at the preaching of Ulphilas. 
At his intercession they were then permitted to cross 
the river into the more fertile valleys of Moesia. The 
exchange was like another Exodus, and their leader and 
legislator was styled a second Moses. Unhappily this 
apostle of the Goths was an Arian, and the sons of Odin, 
embracing his heresy with at least as much ardour as his 
religion, regarded their civilised and Catholic neighbours 
much as the Saracens, at a later period, regarded the 
Christian idolaters. 

On the death of Theodosius these warlike Arians rose 
in arms, and after threatening Constantinople, tinned 
their steps, at the secret instigation of the Byzantine court, 
n the direction of the West . The Goths were divided into 
eastern or Ostrogoths, western or Visigoths, and Lepidee 
or Lingerers, so denominated (it is said) from having 
been the last of the three yawls in which the emigration 
quitted Scandinavia. The Yandals were distinguished 
by the various names of Heruli, Emgundians, Lombards, 
etc. The number and variety of the tribes who thronged 
across the Danube gave the province the name of 
Pannonia. Here they menaced Constantinople on one 
side and Borne on the other. Further swarms poured 
out of Germany into Gaul. The Pranks were a miscel- 
laneous confederacy, who substituted the common name 
of Freemen for their tribal appellations. A similar origin 
is ascribed to the Alemans or Allmen. Both crossed the 
Ehine at the instance of Constantius, to harass Mag- 
nentius ; the Alemans established themselves in Alsace 
and Lorraine, the Pranks in the Batavian marshes. The 



> 



BAEBAEIAX RAVAGES. 



43 



last alone of all the barbarians retained their idols ; the 
rest were Arian Christians, and to the orthodox Italians 
the heretic was more formidable than the idolater. 
The Franks, in fact, proved their best allies, and suffered 
severely in resisting the southward rush of their more 
savage compatriots. 

It is hardly possible, in this happier age, to form an 
adequate conception of the miseries inflicted on the 
Eoman empire by the irruption of these barbarians. All 
expressions drawn from the language of ordinary war- 
fare fail to meet the facts of the case. The bulk of the 
population, as in modern times, left their defence to the 
regular army, employing themselves in the usual pursuits 
of industry. The barbarians, on the contrary, were a 
nation of armed savages, fighting not for military con- 
quest but for plunder or settlement. They broke in on 
the civilised population like an ocean which has burst its 
boundaries, ravaging the fields, burning and pillaging the 
towns, massacring or carrying captive whole populations. 
Neither rank, sex, or age obtained mercy. Their object 
was to extirpate the existing proprietors, and dwell in 
their places. The legions might defeat a particular 
expedition in a pitched battle ; but no troops could 
exclude a continually recurring inundation of savages, 
with nothing to lose, and everything to gain, whose fresh 
hosts supplied the place of the fallen. Their track was 
like the simoom of the desert. The land was stripped of 
its produce, or if any fruits remained they perished on 
the ground for lack of hands to harvest them. Famine 
and pestilence destroyed the surviving inhabitants, and 
in some of the fairest parts of the world the human race 
received a check, which the prosperity of sxicceeding ages 
has not even yet been able to repair. 

In this ch'eaclful inundation four several waves have 
been distinguished, as corresponding with the four 



44 



FALL OF THE WEST. 



earlier trumpets of the seventh seal in the Apocalypse. 1 
The first was the invasion of Alaric, who returned to 
Italy a.d. 408, and, passing between the emperor's palace 
at Eavenna and the camp of Stilicho at Pavia, marched 
straight to the gates of Borne. The city was then twenty- 
one miles in circumference, 2 and contained a population 
of 1,200,000 souls. The patricians, who boasted their 
descent from the conquerors of Hannibal, would spend 
£100,000 in the inauguration feasts of their prsetorship. 
They could show a rent-roll of £160,000 per annum, 
arising from vast estates cultivated by slaves. Their 
marble palaces were rilled with treasures of art. A train 
of fifty slaves followed the lordly senator as he rode in 
his chariot, with his long robe of purple silk floating on 
the wind. If he went into the country, his household 
inarched like an army, the rear being brought up by a 
band of eunuchs. Enormous sums were lavished on a 
dinner, while the bulk of the lazy population subsisted 
on a daily distribution of bread, bacon, and oil from the 
public stores supplied by the provinces. This dole 
being curt-ailed by the siege, famine and pestilence stalked 
through the city. Some were ready to invoke the pagan 
deities by sacrifice, 3 but none had the courage to face the 
invader in arms, Alaric, accepting a ransom of all the 
gold, silver, and other valuables in the city, granted his 
victims a temporary respite ; but he returned the next 
year, and the Eternal City, opening its gates to the 
barbarian, created a new emperor at his dictation. 

The vengeance w^as arrested but for a brief space. The 

1 Rev. viii. 6-12. 

2 This is less than half the extent which Varro ascribes to the walls of 
Aurelian. 

3 Zosimus accuses Pope Innocent of having sanctioned this proposal, 
on condition that it was done in private ; which Baronius indignantly denies. 
Gibbon says it was rejected in the senate, but Sozomen admits that the 
pagan rite was actually celebrated. 



> 



SACK OF ROME BY THE GOTHS. 



45 



Goths quickly cast away their tool, and on the 24th of 
August, 410, the Eomans were awakened at midnight by 
the trumpet of the dreaded barbarian in their streets. 
Eome was delivered up to pillage and fire; the streets were 
filled with the bodies of the slain, the palaces were 
stripped of their costly furniture, the gold, jewels, and 
wardrobes of the luxurious patricians loaded the waggons 
of the Goths, and flames devoured the houses. The 
forum, decorated with countless statues of gods and 
heroes, from the fabled ^Eneas down to the deified Caesars, 
was levelled in the dust. 1 For six days the despairing 
inhabitants suffered all that could be inflicted from the 
horrors of war, and the still more terrible revenge of 
their liberated slaves. Those who had the means fled 
from the storm, and the wealth and power of the senators 
stood them in such stead, that only one of their number 
is said to have perished. The consternation and misery 
created by this irruption have been thought to be repre- 
sented in the " hail and fire mingled with blood, cast 
upon the earth : and the third part of trees was burnt 
up, and all green grass was burnt up." 2 

After evacuating Eome, the Goths ravaged the south 
of Italy, but were prevented from seizing Sicily and 
Africa by the sudden death of Alaric. His successor 
Adolphus found among the Eoman captives the 
emperor's sister Placidia, and, having persuaded her to 
accept his hand, he granted peace to her trembling 
brother. The empire, however, had received its death- 
blow. Honorius enjoyed a second triumph at Eome, 
after recovering Gaul and Spain by the swords of the 
Goths (a.d. 418); but his allies were now his masters; 
he was obliged to turn a deaf ear to the groans of the 
Britons, and recalling the legions to his own support he 



1 According to Orosius, by lightning. 

2 Rev. viii. 7. Elliott's Hor. Apoc. 



46 



FALL OF THE WEST. 



abandoned the island for ever, leaving the habitations of 
Eoman luxury and the productions of Koman art to be 
seized by the unpolished Saxons. 

The judgments now poured on pagan Eome suggested 
the theme of Augustine's great work, the " City of 
God." Designating the fallen capital as the Great 
Eabylon of the West, he triumphs grandly in the 
humiliation of idolatry. Heathen Eome, with all its 
abominations, was doomed for ever : its place is to 
be occupied by the City of God, the Church of Christ. 
A fine contrast is drawn between Paganism and Chris- 
tianity, both in this world and the next. The new 
religion is represented as changing the framework of 
society, and culminating in the Kingdom of Christ. Eut 
Augustine foresaw not the new Eabylon that was to hold 
out her cup from the seven hills of the Tiber. He had 
no vision of the Papacy. It was the persuasive voice of 
the Gospel, and the influence of the Holy Spirit, not the 
craft and violence of earthly power, from which he antici- 
pated the extension and unity of the City of God. 

The Goths were followed by the Vandals, who after 
a similar course of plunder, submission, and settlement, 
had been allowed by Theodosius to populate the villages 
of Thrace. Driven thence by the Huns, they penetrated 
through France and Spain into Africa, subdued the 
Carthaginian territory, and, from both sides the Straits 
of Gibraltar, harassed the Mediterranean with incessant 
piracies. These sanguinary corsairs have been traced in 
the fiery mountain which was cast into the sea: u and 
the third part of the sea became blood; and the third part 
of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died, 
and the third part of the ships were destroyed." 1 

The Vandals were even more ferocious than the 
Goths ; and the name of their pirate- chief, Genseric, 

i Rev. viii. 8, 9. 



SACK OF ROME BY THE VANDALS. 



47 



was more terrible in Rome than Alaric himself. Yalen- 
tinian m., who on the death of Honoring was nominated 
by the Greek emperor to the Latin throne, paid 
for the favonr by ceding Western Illyricnm to the 
eastern empire. He drew his sword only to slay the 
gallant iEtius, his bravest general, and was himself cnt 
down by a meaner assassin in revenge for a yet fouler 
crime. The widowed empress applied to Genseric to 
punish the usurper; and the dreaded Yandals quickly 
appeared at the mouth of the Tiber. Eome was again 
delivered up to be sacked. The blind passions of a 
fallen nature wrought their terrible will for a whole 
fortnight on the helpless inhabitants. All that remained, 
or had been recovered, from the Goths fell a prey to 
their ruder successors. The churches, which Alaric 
spared, were plundered without scruple. The spoils of 
Jerusalem — the holy vessels, the table of gold, and the 
seven-branched candlestick, which Titus brought from 
the Holy Place on Mount Zion — were taken from the 
Temple of Peace and shipped in triumph to Carthage. 
The horror-stricken empress, with many thousand captives 
of both sexes, were dragged away in the train of the 
barbarians, and found their only solace in the charity of 
the good bishop of Carthage, Deogratias (a.d. 455). 

In the meantime Gaul and Italy were ravaged by a 
third devastator, who took the name of the " Scourge of 
God:" he has been found in the third trumpet, u the 
star which is called "Wormwood." 1 The Goths and 
Yandals had been driven westward by the pressure of 
the Huns in their rear ; and in the year 442 the Huns 
themselves crossed the Danube, under the command of 
their terrible king Attila, and burst upon the empire in 
a new tide of desolation. After ravaging Mysia, Thrace, 
and Illyricum with incredible slaughter, Attila accepted 

i Rev. viii. 10, 11. 



48 



FALL OF THE WEST. 



a thousand pounds of gold and an annual subsidy from 
the Emperor Thedosius n. as the price of his withdrawal 
(a.d. 434). 

A brief respite ensued in both empires, but Attila 
again burst into Illyricum (a.d. 447), and three years 
after invaded Gaul at the head of 700,000 Tartars, 
Poles, Germans, and Muscovites. Putting all to fire and 
sword, he pursued his course as far as Orleans, where he 
was arrested by .ZEtius, whose legions inflicted a severe 
defeat. Ketreating into Pannonia the Huns returned at 
the head of a more numerous force, and fell upon 
Yenetia. The inhabitants fled to the islands of the 
Adriatic, and there laid the foundations of the modern 
Venice. Having taken Aquilea, the invader marched to 
the Po, where he was met by Pope Leo, and prevailed upon 
again to withdraw. The next year, however, he once more 
invaded Gaul, where he perished of intemperance (a.d. 453). 

The rapid and eccentric movements of this destroyer 
would be not inaptly figured by a flashing meteor, 
and how " many men died" by his means may 
be judged by the fact that the single battle of Chalons 
cost the lives of nearly 300,000 persons. He was 
accustomed to say that the grass never grew where 
his horse had set his foot. It is further observed that 
his principal operations were directed to the " rivers and 
fountains of waters," and finally that his Huns were 
eventually dissipated and absorbed, like a blazing star 
quenched in the deep. 

The western empire was now reduced to the king- 
dom of Italy, and its purple was made the sport of the 
barbarians. The emperor Leo i. made an effort for its 
assistance, by sending his Master- General Majorianus 
to occupy the throne, and fitting out a fleet against the 
Yandals ; but Majorianus was slain by means of Eicimer, 
a Goth whom he had nominated to the command of the 



LAST EMPEROK. 



49 



army, and the fleet was destroyed by the mismanage- 
ment of the admiral. "No better fate befell Anthemius, 
the next emperor. Bicimer, though honoured with the 
hand of his daughter, besieged him in Borne, which, 
after enduring the miseries of famine and pestilence, 
was taken and pillaged by her own troops, with a fury 
not exceeded by the Goths or Yandals (a.d. 462). An- 
themius was put to death, soon followed by Bicimer. 

Glycerius, who was saluted Augustus by the Gothic 
troops, yielded to Nepos, sent from Constantinople, and 
he in turn to the Gothic general Orestes. 1 The latter 
haying allied himself with the daughter of a Boman 
senator, conceived their son to be eligible to the prize 
for which his own birth disqualified him. The youth 
was declared emperor by the high-sounding name of 
Bomulus Augustus, recalling the memories of the two 
founders of Borne, only to witness the extinction of 
the imperial dignity. 

The fated twelve centuries now expired, and the last 
destroyer was at hand. Odoacer king of the Heruli was 
already in Italy at the head of a mixed confederacy of 
barbarians, and master of all its provinces. He defeated 
Orestes in a succession of engagements, and finally put 
him to death. At Pavia his soldiers proclaimed him King 
of Italy. Though unwilling to wear the imperial ensigns 
himself, he resolved not to concede them to another, and 
advanced to Borne, where Augustus had taken refuge. 
The citizens went out to meet him, the helpless emperor 
laid down the purple, and the abject senate wrote to Con- 
stantinople that it was no longer desirable to continue the 
imperial succession in the West. One Augustus would 
suffice, and, renouncing any further voice in his election, 

1 Glycerius was ordained Bishop of Salonse, and there entertained N epos, 
when his turn came to fly. 

E 



50 



FALL OF THE WEST. 



they besought the emperor to entrust his Italian Diocese 
to the government of Odoacer, with the title of Patrician, 
assured that the Eepublic (for Eome still clung to that 
departed phantom) might safely confide in his arms 
(a.d. 476). 

The son of Orestes received a pension of six thousand 
pieces of gold; and, retiring to a villa on the bay of 
Naples, ended his days in an inglorious obscurity which 
reduced his lofty appellation to a contemptible diminu- 
tive — from Augustus to Augustulus. 

~No imagination can realise the amount of splendour, 
luxury, and guilt, which had accumulated during these 
five centuries in the "Babylon of the West;" and no 
words can paint the miseries with which she was chastised. 
Three times in sixty years the city had been sacked by a 
furious enemy. The harvests of Egypt and Africa, which 
supported the populace, were lost ; the country was 
exhausted by war, famine, and pestilence. The loss of life 
is incalculable: in Emilia, Tuscany, and some other 
provinces, the human species was almost extinct. Eome 
"saw her glories, star by star, expire." A cloud of 
barbarian ignorance eclipsed the classic renown of 
Augustus, and the religious splendour of Constantine 
was overcast with idolatry and Arianism. 

Of her subject nations not one remained to the 
Church and the Gospel. The Saxons were treading out 
the light of Christianity in England. Gaul was divided 
between the Yisigoths, Burgundians, and Franks. Spain 
groaned under the Goths, Suevi, and Alans. Africa 
was a prey to the Yandals. All these were either 
Arians or idolaters, persecuting the Church. The Greek 
emperors were scarcely less hostile to the faith and 
morals of the Gospel, while Eome herself was laid low 
under a barbarian king. It is not surprising that 
commentators should find in these calamities the signs 



OSTROGOTH KINGDOM. 



51 



of the fourth woe: "the third part of the sun was 
smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the 
third part of the stars ; so as the third part of them 
was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part 
of it." 1 

Odoacer ruled in Eome as patrician, and in Italy as 
king, for seventeen years, alleviating the humiliation of 
barbarian rule by a strict administration of the imperial 
laws. "Wisely resigning to the Yisigoths all pretensions 
to the countries beyond the Alps, he protected Italy by 
his arms, and acquired so great a reputation that the in- 
trigues of the Byzantine Court were put in motion for 
his destruction. The Pannonian provinces had been 
occupied on the retreat of the Huns by the Ostrogoths. 
Their king Theodoric was a prince of commanding 
genius : if he could be incited to carry his arms 
westward, Constantinople might hope to regain some of 
her lost territory in his rear. Theodoric, who had once 
lived in the imperial court as a hostage, readily listened to 
the proposal. Breaking into Italy, he defeated Odoacer 
in a succession of engagements, and having blockaded him 
in Eavenna, compelled him to share his royalty with 
himself. The Herulian prince, with his son, were shortly 
after murdered at a banquet given by their conqueror. 
Theodoric made terms with their followers ; and, having 
secured the consent of the emperor, annexed the king- 
dom to, his own possessions, amidst the acclamations of 
the senate and the people of Eome (a.d. 493). 

Theodoric reigned with prudence and propriety thirty- 
three years. His visit to Eome to appease the civil war 
that had arisen between the contending parties at the 
election of Pope Symmachus, recalled the memory of the 
ancient triumphs. He repelled the Bulgarians from Pan- 

1 Rev. viii. 12, 

E 2 



52 



FALL OF THE WEST. 



nonia (a.d. 507), and defeated the French, king Cloyis in 
Ganl. His Arianism was of a milder type than others, 
and though his condnet towards the senate still savoured 
of the barbarian, his death was justly regretted as the 
dissolution of a wise and powerful government (a.d. 526). 

He left his throne to an infant grandson, under the 
enlightened guardianship of his mother Amalsont. The 
regent being a princess of remarkable attainments in 
literature, sought to impart to her son some of the 
refinements of education. But the illiterate chiefs 
resented the notion of a Gothic king learning Latin and 
Greek ; — Theodoric was a great monarch, and he could 
never write his name. They dismissed the tutors, and in 
a few years the youth drank himself to death. Amalsont 
sought out a cousin, who was studying Plato in retire- 
ment, and placed him on the throne by her side. The 
philosopher, preferring to reign alone, caused his bene- 
factress to be strangled. 

These excesses afforded the Greek emperor the 
long-desired pretext for intervention. He was still 
nominally paramount Suzerain. The arms of the 
renowned Belisarius had just recovered Africa to the 
empire, and restored the holy vessels to Jerusalem, 
where they were deposited in the sanctuary of the Italian 
Church. Constantinople had been gratified by the un- 
precedented spectacle of a triumph, and Eelisarius was 
ready to win a second in Italy. Justinian, having 
ascended the Byzantine throne, sent this distinguished 
soldier at once to avenge recent barbarities, and to 
restore the imperial rule. 

The Church hailed him as a liberator. After re- 
ducing Sicily and Naples he advanced to Eome, where 
the gates were joyfully opened by means of Pope 
Silverius (a.d. 536). The Goths at once deposed their 
philosophical king, and raising Yitiges on their shields, 



BELISARIUS. 



blockaded the city for more than twelve months. It 
was during this memorable siege that Belisarius con- 
structed or restored the existing walls of Borne. Their 
circuit was now reduced to twelve miles, scarcely more 
than half of what is reported at the siege of Alaric, a 
hundred years before. A gap was left in the fortifications 
between the Bincian and Blaminian gates, where the 
Bomans believed, and still believe, that the apostle Beter 
stands sentry. The arches of the aqueducts were made 
impervious, and the mole or sepulchre of Hadrian was 
converted into a citadel, since dedicated to the archangel. 
Its white covering of Parian marble, with the statues 
and decorations, are said to have been used as missiles 
to hurl on the heads of the besiegers in the ditch. 
Thirty thousand of the barbarians fell at the first 
assault. Having received, at last, the promised rein- 
forcements from Constantinople, Belisarius assumed the 
aggressive, advanced upon the Goths, and forced them 
gradually back to Bavenna. 

His progress was delayed by the contumacy of 
Parses, his second in command, and during these dis- 
sensions Milan was left to surrender to the Goths and 
Burgundians. The barbarians, in scornful violation of 
the articles, gave up the inhabitants, to the number of 
300,000, to indiscriminate massacre, and levelled the 
walls with the ground. The ecclesiastics were butchered 
at the altars, the women made slaves, and Dacius the 
bishop, escaping to Constantinople, carried tidings which 
induced Justinian to recall Parses. 

These barbarous wars had so wasted Italy that the 
lands were no longer cultivated, and bread was made 
from acorns. 'No less than 50,000 persons died of 
hunger in the Bicentine province : others tried to subsist 
upon grass, and some on the horrible expedient of human 
flesh. The dead lay unburied ; to add to the horrors, 



54 



FALL OF THE WEST. 



the Franks invaded the prostrate kingdom, and while 
each party expected their assistance, they plundered 
both Eoman and Gothic camps with scrupulous impar- 
tiality. In their despair the Goths offered the Western 
purple to Belisarius, but eluding their negotiations, he 
completed the subjugation of Italy, and sent the keys of 
Eavenna to Justinian (a.d. 540). 

On his return to the East all was lost again, both 
in Africa and Italy. Belisarius coming back, neither 
sated with glory nor discouraged by ingratitude, found 
the Goths in the field under the famous king Totila, and 
the orthodox alienated by the ill-usage of the pope and 
the excesses of the imperial troops. In 546 Eome was 
again taken by the Goths. Totila pulled down a large 
part of the walls, and threatened to convert the entire 
city into pasture ground. The remonstrances of the 
Eoman general arrested this barbarous intention, and 
when he retired, dragging the senators into captivity, 
Belisarius reoccupied and restored the Eternal City. 

The jealousy of Justinian having a second time 
recalled the conqueror of the West, 1 Totila reigned 
without opposition over Eome, Italy, and Epirus, 
with the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. 
Eoused at last by the appeals of the bishops, Justinian 
despatched Narses to restore the imperial rule. Totila 

1 Ten years later (after having saved Constantinople from the bar- 
barians) Belisarius was imprisoned on a charge of treason, the favourite 
expedient at that court, in all ages, for confiscating private property to the 
emperor's use. The popular story adds, that he was deprived of his eyes, 
and turned out to beg in the streets. Here the general, who had been 
decreed the only triumph which New Rome ever witnessed, might be seen 
uttering the feeble cry: "Give an obolus to Belisarius; him whom you 
once saw a commander, you now see a beggar." Gibbon calls this " an 
idle fable," and says that Belisarius was restored to his honours on a full 
investigation of the charge, but the "fable" is maintained not only by 
Baronius but by Greg. Leti, and other good writers. — Istor. dell. Imp. 
Jlom. ii. p. 66. 



> 



KEOTIOX TV r ITH THE EAST. 



55 



fell in battle (a.d. 552); the Franks who had come 
to his assistance retired behind the Alps, the Gothic 
kingdom was extinguished, and, after suffering fire 
sieges and captures, Eome once more reposed under 
the empire : but it was no longer the Eome of ancient 
days. The senators never came back from their Gothic 
captivity, and the long beadroll of consuls, after existing 
1047 years, came to an end with the name of Basiliiis 
(a.d. 541). The office had long ceased to possess any 
authority, and only served as the official date of the 
year. Henceforth the Byzantine emperors declared them- 
selves consuls of Eome on the day of their accession, and 
the public acts were dated by the year of their reign. 
The fall of the West was complete. 



CHAPTEB III. 



THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 

Rise of the Ecclesiastical Government — Spiritual Titles — Foundation of 
the Roman Church — Visits of St. Paul — Martyrdom — Traditions of 
St. Peter as First Bishop — Legend of Simon Magus — Scripture Con- 
tradiction — Historical Notices — Babylon not Rome — Modern Hypo- 
thesis — Dionysius of Corinth — Irenseus — Caius of Rome — The 
Vatican — Peter not buried there — The Supremacy — Power of the 
Keys — Growth of the Roman See. 

The decay of imperial authority naturally threw the 
government of Borne more and more into the hands 
of the bishop and clergy. The capture and removal 
of the senate left the people no other leaders, 
and their sacred office was respected even by the 
barbarian. In the contest with the Byzantine Court, 
again, the bishop was the champion at once of the 
civil and religious liberties of Eome. Often the first 
to suffer, he was always on the spot to relieve and 
console the sufferings of others. These claims to autho- 
rity, for a time, contented the ambition of the Church. 
The love of power, however, notoriously increases with 
its possession. The popes began to dream of a divine 
supremacy. They called themselves successors of St. 
Peter and Yicars of Jesus Christ — titles originally 
attributed to all orthodox bishops, but which, at 



FOUNDATION OF THE ROMAN CHURCH. 



57 



Rome, became invested with a portentous significance. 1 
The remarkable words addressed by our Lord to St. 
Peter 2 were supposed to invest him with a supre- 
macy over the Universal Church, which the apostle 
had in some peculiar manner deposited in the see of 
Eome. St. Peter was claimed as its founder and first 
bishop. Pilgrimages were made to his tomb on the 
Vatican hill, and an elaborate system, first of spiritual 
and then of temporal authority, was built out of tra- 
ditions, which prove, on examination, to be absolutely 
destitute of historical proof. 

It is true that, as early as the third century, the 
graves of the apostles Peter and Paul were exhibited 
at Eome, the first on the Vatican, the other on the 
Ostian road. 3 The Pauline monument is corroborated 
by the Scripture, which leaves the apostle at Eome, 
and in expectation of immediate martyrdom, 4 but for 
Peter, there is no shadow of evidence that he was ever 
at Eome at all. 

That he was not the founder of the Church (any 
further than by being the first to preach the Gospel on 
the day of Pentecost) is clear from the Epistle to the 
Eomans. St. Paul, at the date of this letter, had not yet 
visited Eome, 5 and the terms on which he acknowledges 
its claim on himself as the apostle of the Gentiles, 6 
coupled with his well-known repugnance to intrude on 

1 Every bishopric supposed to be planted by an apostle took the title 
of Apostolic. For the same reason, Alexandria called itself the Evangelical 
see, as founded by the evangelist Mark. All bishops were, in like manner, 
called successors of St. Peter, regarded as the representative of the whole 
apostolate. In the east Antioch claimed the chair of St. Peter in a 
peculiar sense, and the Syrian see had the advantage over the Italian, 
that St. Peter did unquestionably visit it (Gal. ii. 11), though here, again, 
it was Paul, not Peter, who laid the foundation (Acts xi. 26). 

2 Matt. xvi. 18, 19. 3 Eus. E. II., ii. 25. 4 2 Tim. iv. 6. 
5 Rom. i. 10. 6 Rom. i. 14, 15. 



58 



THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 



the field of another, 1 necessitate a similar conclusion 
with regard to St. - Peter. Yet the salutations in this 
epistle prove that a flourishing Church was already- 
organised. 2 

It was probably planted by some of those Jews of 
Eome who heard St. Peter preach on the day of Pen- 
tecost. 3 The Jews had several synagogues at Eome, 
and their dissensions respecting the new doctrines may 
have led to the commotions which provoked the emperor 
Claudius to banish the whole race. 4 Among the exiles 
were Aquila and Priscilla, who taking refuge at Corinth 
were there converted by St. Paul, and afterwards accom- 
panied him to Ephesus. 5 Returning to Eome, where 
the interdict on the Jews was not long maintained, this 
Christian couple would add, to what was previously 
known of the Gospel, the teaching which they had 
themselves received from the mouth of St. Paul. The 
names of the two great apostles might be bandied 
about, as at Corinth, 6 for the watchwords of contending 
parties; and hence the tradition of later days that Peter 
and Paul were joint founders of the Eoman See. St. Paul 
was entreated to come and appease these disorders : he 
had both kinsmen and fellow-prisoners 7 to visit, and he 
had long purposed to do so, 8 when the providence of 
God conducted him to the capital in bonds (a.d. 6 1). 9 
The apostle remained two years preaching and teaching 
freely the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ. 10 

i 2 Cor. x. 13, 16 * R om . i. g ; xvi. 5, 7, 9. 3 Acts ii. 10. 

4 Acts xviii. 2. Suetonius ascribes the disturbance to "one Chrestus." 

5 Acts xxiii. 18, comp. w. 1, 7, showing that Aquila and Priscilla were 
then indisposed to retain the apostle under their roof. 

« 1 Cor. i. 12. 7 Rom. xvi. 7-11. 8 Rom. i. 13. 

9 Felix was succeeded by Festus, a.d. 60 (Conybeare and Howson, 
ii. n. C.) ; and St. Paul, sailing from Csesarea in the autumn of that year 
(Acts xxvii. 1, 9), after wintering at Malta (xxviii. 11), reached Rome 
in the following spring. 

i° Acts xxviii. 31. 



VISITS OF ST. PAUL, 



59 



Here the sacred history terminates, not, however, 
from the death or final separation of the writer, for 
St. Luke appears again as the apostle's sole companion 
at the close of his life. 1 We may gather from incidental 
allusions that St. Paul obtained his release, and, perhaps, 
prosecuted his intended journey into Spain. 2 Thence he 
must have returned to Asia Minor, revisiting Ephesus, 3 
Colosse, 4 Miletus, 5 Troas, 6 and crossed the sea to winter 
at INicopolis in Epirus. 7 Thence he may have proceeded 
to Corinth, 8 and, finally, again to Eome, where we find 
him once more in custody, under more rigorous confine- 
ment, and looking forward to immediate death ; " ready 
to be offered the fight fought, his course finished, 
and only the crown to receive. 9 

Between these two visits of St. Paul to Eome, the 
great fire occurred (a.d. 64), which Nero charged upon 
the Christians, in order to avert the suspicion justly due 
to himself. On this charge some were sewn up in skins 
of wild beasts, and torn to pieces by dogs ; many were 
crucified ; for others the new torture was invented 
of enclosing them in rolls of waxed cloth, and burning 
them alive, with a stake under their chins to keep them 
upright. "With these horrible torches the tyrant actually 
illuminated his gardens. 10 

St. Paul was absent during the heat of the persecu- 

i 2 Tim. iv. 11. 2 Eom. xv. 24, 28, 

3 2 Tim. i. 18. 4 Philem. 22. 

5 2 Tim. iv. 20. 6 2 Tim. iv. 13. 

' Tit. iii. 12. 8 2 Tim. iv. 20. 

9 2 Tim. iv. 6-8. The original expression is very striking : "I am 
already sacrificed, as it were a victim bound on the altar, and only awaiting 
the fatal blow." 

10 Tac. Ann., xv. 60, 61. The historian, who does not conceal his convic- 
tion that the emperor was the guilty party, says the victims perished, not 
for the conflagration, but for their universal hatred of the human race. 
(Odio generis humani convicti sunt.) This was a common charge Against the 
Jews, with whom the Christians were confounded by the early historians, 



60 



THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 



tion, but it would seem that he was seized on his return, 
and, according to tradition, beheaded in the Ostian way, 
in the last year of Nero's reign (a.d. 67-8). This result 
is perfectly consistent with the sacred history, and the 
probability of the case ; nor is it unlikely that the church 
which bears his name marks the actual spot of the 
apostle's martyrdom. 

The tradition, however, is not content with St. Paul ; 
it claims St. Peter also as the companion of his martyr- 
dom, and, moreover, as Bishop of Eome for a consider- 
able period before they suffered. This was the belief of 
Justin Martyr, IrenaBus, Cyril of Jerusalem, Tertullian, 
Eusebius, and Jerome. According to Eusebius, St. Peter 
went to Eome in the reign of Claudius (who died a.d. 54), 
and continued there twenty years : Jerome expands the 
time to twenty-five years. The exact period as assigned 
in the Eoman annals is twenty-four years, five months, 
and ten days, and to these " years of St. Peter" it is a 
standing tradition that no successor is ever to attain. 1 

The story is that St. Peter went in pursuit of Simon 
Magus, who after his defeat at Samaria fled to Eome, 
and was there worshipped as God. 2 Justin Martyr 
appeals, in support of this tradition, to an image with the 
inscription u Simoni Deo Sancto" z which he had seen in 
an island in the Tiber ; but the reference only proves the 
little dependence to be placed on such stories; for this 
very inscription was discovered on a stone found in the 
Tiber (a.d. 1574), and proves to be " Semoni Banco Deo 
Fidio Sacrum." The name belonged to a Sabine deity, 4 
and was imposed upon Justin, who did not understand 
Latin, as that of Simon Magus. 5 

1 The charm was nearly broken by Pius vn., who died far advanced in 
the twenty-third year of his pontificate. 

2 Ens. E. H., ii. 13, 14. 3 Just. Apol., i. (ad Ant.) 26. 

4 See page 3, note 2. 5 Alford's Gr. Test., Acts viii. 9, note. 



MARTYRDOM OF ST. PETER. 



61 



The legend adds that Simon flew up in the air in the 
presence of Nero, hut on St. Peter invoking the name of 
Christ he fell down and broke his legs. 1 To escape the 
resentment of Simon's adherents the apostle secretly left 
the city, but was encountered at the gate by our blessed 
Lord, who, in reply to his inquiry, u Domine, quo vadis ? v 
(Lord, whither goest thou?) answered, "I am going 
to Eome to be crucified." The apostle, understanding 
this as a reproach on his timidity, returned, and being 
seized, was crucified by the emperor's order. 2 It is 
added that, at his own request, he suffered with his 
head downwards, as unworthy to share the posture of 
his Lord. 3 

Such is the story now confidently received at Eome, 
and it must stand or fall as a whole. The attempt of 
some Protestant writers to sustain the martyrdom, while 
disallowing the episcopacy, is a merely arbitrary divorce 
of closely-united testimony. If we turn to the Scripture, 
there is reason to think that St. Peter had indeed 
been put to death by crucifixion when J ohn wrote his 
Gospel (a.d. 78), 4 but the evangelist makes no allusion 
to the place of his suffering ; and no other part of the 
ISTew Testament in any way connects St. Peter with 
Pome. On the other hand, it is clear that, during the 
larger part, at least, of the period assigned for his episco- 
pacy at Eome, the apostle was preaching and journeying 
in Asia. In the Acts of the Apostles we find him in 

1 Among the sights at Rome are the prints of the apostle's knees on one 
stone, and the blood of the magician on another. The legend is probably 
a confusion of the story told of an unlucky conjuror in Suet. vi. 12, with 
Peter's real controversy with Simon Magus at Samaria (Acts viii.). 

2 Tillemont, Mem. i, 187, and 555. This story is fathered on Ambrose, 
but does not appear in the Bened. edition of his works. 

3 Eus. E. H., iii. 1. 

4 John xxi. 18, 19. This last chapter, however, is thought to have been 
added by the evangelist at a later date (Alford, ad fin). 



62 



THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 



Judsea, Samaria, and Csesarea. St. Paul mentions a 
visit to Antioch, adding that it had been agreed at 
Jerusalem that he and Barnabas should go to the 
heathen, while Peter, James, and John employed them- 
selves among the Jews. 1 In perfect accordance with 
this distribution of labour, Peter's first epistle is ad- 
dressed to the Jewish dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, 
Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 provinces of Asia 
Minor, which Eusebius records as the field of this 
apostle's preaching. 3 

These notices are clearly incompatible with any 
continuous residence at Eome. If the apostle went 
there at all in the reign of Claudius, he would have 
been expelled with Aquila and Priscilla ; if he returned 
with them, he must have again fled with them, 4 or have 
perished in the persecution during Paul's absence. 
But the silence of St. Paul, both in the epistles 
to the Eomans and in those written from Eome, while 
mentioning many other Christians, 5 is conclusive against 
any visit by St. Peter up to the writing of the second 
epistle to Timothy. In that, St. Paul expressly states 
that only Luke was with him, and that all men had 
forsaken him. 6 Consequently, St. Peter was not then 
at Eome ; nor, when summoning Timothy and Mark to 
his side, does St. Paul anticipate any visit from his 
brother-apostle. 

Peter was at this time probably at Babylon, the 
place from which his epistle is dated; and though 
Eusebius with most of the fathers, in deference to 
the tradition, interpreted this word as a mystical name 

> Gal. ii. 9, 11. 2 1 Pet, i. 1. 

3 E. H., iii. 4. « 2 Tim. iv. 19. 

5 Among them Linus and Clement (2 Tim. iv. 21 ; Phil. iv. 3), who, 
according to Eusebius, were the first and third bishops of Eome. 

6 2 Tim. iv. 11, 16. 



MODEEN HYPOTHESIS. 



63 



for Rome, 1 that interpretation is now universally 
exploded. The visions of the Apocalypse, which, 
however, had not then been revealed, do indeed call 
Rome by this name ; but the date of a letter must, 
in all reason, be the actual name of the place. This 
was either the well-known city on the Euphrates, 
or, more probably, Babylon on the Mle. 2 These were 
the two largest seats of Jewish population out of 
Palestine, and therefore as appropriate to Peter's 
mission, as Rome, the capital of the Gentile world, 
was to St. Paul's. 

It follows that if St. Peter ever was at Rome he 
must have arrived after the latest scriptural date, and 
only just in time to suffer with his brother-apostle. 
This is the theory of those who would fain concede 
something to the tradition, while they feel the strength of 
the scriptural evidence; 3 but this modern hypothesis, 
halting between two opinions, has no support, either from 
Scripture or the fathers. The Romanists insist on the 
life and preaching of the apostle at Rome : his death 
alone would do nothing for the foundation of the Holy 
See, nor the primacy of the Universal Church. In 
rejecting these, the martyrdom is left without motive, 
object, or independent testimony. 

All that can be said for it is this : Dionysius, bishop 
of Corinth (a.d. 180), supposed Peter and Paul to be 
joint founders both of the Roman and the Corinthian 
Churches, and going together into Italy, to have suffered 
martyrdom at the same time. 4 Here, again, the mar- 
tyrdom is combined with other particulars manifestly 
untrue. That the Corinthian Church was founded by 

1 E. H., ii. 15. 

2 See the author's "Egypt," p. 115. Babylon on the Euphrates was then 
in ruins. Churton's New Test., Prol. to St. Mark. 

3 Smith's Bible Diet., ii. 797— Peter. * Eus. E. H., ii. 25. 



64 



THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 



St. Paul alone, is distinctly related in the New Testa- 
ment/ and there is no evidence that Peter ever visited 
it at all. The Judaizing party alleged his authority 
against Paul, as the same party probably did at Rome, 
and this may have given rise in both places to the 
tradition of a joint foundation with St. Paul ; but it is 
no proof of St. Peter's actual presence in either city. 2 
As for the two apostles going in company to Italy, 
it is certain that Peter was not the companion of Paul's 
first voyage to Eome, and if they were together in the 
voyage supposed to be made by St. Paul from Corinth, 
just before his death, how could the latter omit all 
allusion to his brother-apostle in his last letter, and 
even write, " Only Luke is with me ?" 

Irenseus is also quoted for the martyrdom, but besides 
telling us what has been shown to be disproved in 
Scripture, that Peter and Paul preached the Gospel at 
Pome, and founded the Church together, he adds, that 
at the same time Matthew wrote his Gfospel in Hebrew, 
and Mark wrote his after their death] 3 whereas Clement 
and Papias affirm that Peter was alive and approved the 
design of Mark. 4 

The only other piece of evidence is a letter from 
Caius, a Eoman presbyter, in the time of Zephyrinus 
(a.d. 201-18), stating that the trophies of the apostles 
who founded that Church were shown in the Vatican, 
and on the Ostian Way. This carries up the tradition to 
little more than a century from the time of the mar- 
tyrdom. Still there is a difficulty which is absolutely 
insuperable. The Yatican was a sequestered hill beyond 

1 Acts xviii. 1 — comp. 1 Cor. iv. 15 ; ix. 2; 2 Cor. x. 14. 

2 It appears from 1 Cor. iv. 6, that St. Paul did not refer to the 
apostles themselves, but to other teachers who made use of their names : 
without authority. 

3 Adv. Hseres., iii. 1. 4 Eus. E. H., ii. 15. 



THE OLD CATHEDRAL. 



65 



the walls of Eome and on the other side the Tiber; it 
derived its name from an ancient oracle, which was, 
perhaps, connected with the sportive echo celebrated by 
Horace. 1 It was the site of Ponrpey's theatre, and of 
Nero's magnificent circus, surrounded by altars and 
oracles. 2 That a corpse — and that a crucified Jew's — 
should be interred amid these sacred objects is so im- 
probable, that the supporters of the legend are obliged to 
take refuge in a miraculous conversion of the emperor. 3 
Lastly, we must observe that St. Peter's was not 
the first, or the most venerated, name at Eome. The 
old cathedral church was St. John Lateran, 4 supposed 
to mark the spot where the evangelist was thrown 
into a caldron of boiling oil, by order of Domitian, 
on emerging from which without injury he was 
exiled into Patmos. 5 At this church the popes had 

1 Od., i. 20. 

2 The site is identified by the obelisk, which, made for Nectanebus the 
last of the Pharaohs, but left without inscription in the quarry, was erected 
by Ptolemy Philadelphus before the temple of his queen Arsinoe at Alex- 
andria ; thence it was removed to Rome., and placed in the centre of Nero's 
Circus. In the time of pope Sixtus v. this obelisk was close to St. Peter's 
Church, where the sacristy now stands ; to make room for this building it 
was removed to its present position in the centre of the Piazza. 

3 "If the bodies of St. Peter and the martyrs were buried where St. Peter's 
Church now stands, it is strange that the circus could still remain there. 
Perhaps Nero, the inhuman author of the Christian massacres, was com- 
passionate enough to destroy his circus, in order to provide them a place 
of sepulture ; yet the circus was certainly standing in the time of Pliny. 
Perhaps Nero permitted it to serve two ends at once — a circus for the 
Gentiles, and a catacomb for the faithful." (Nardini Roma Antica.) The 
irony of this passage is sufficiently obvious. 

4 The Lateran Palace was the house of Plautus Lateranus, a patrician, 
condemned for conspiring against Nero. (Tac. Ann., xv.) Juvenal styles it, 
"Egregias Lateranorum iEdes." (Sat., x. 7.) In this palace the empress 
Fausta had apartments, in which the council against the Donatists was held 
(a.d. 313). Baronius infers that it was then granted for the bishop's 
residence, but this is far from probable. 

5 Eusebius (II. E., iii. 18) records the exile of St. John, and his return 
into Asia after Domitian's death ; but he knows nothing of the boiling oil, 

F 



66 



THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 



their chair and their residence for many centuries before 
they removed to the Yatican. Constantine, who was a 
great believer in holy places, bnilt a magnificent basilica 
for each; bnt St. John's, which represented the older 
tradition, had the precedence in rank. 1 

The conclusion is that not a particle of historical evi- 
dence exists that the apostle Peter ever visited Eo ne at 
all, while the legends of his death and bnrial there are 
contrary to Scripture and common sense. It was what 
the French call a " grand idea " to suppose that the 
Gospel, beginning at J erusalem and extending to the ut- 
most parts of the earth, returned from the east and west 
in the persons of its two chief apostles, to cement with 
their blood the foundations of an universal see in the 
metropolis of the world. Standing at the present hour 
under the mighty dome, and looking down upon the 
apostolic tomb, lighted by ever-burning lamps, which 
forms the centre of a pile decorated by the labours and 
pilgrimages of many ages, rich with the wealth of king- 
doms, the treasures of art, and the priceless sympathies 
of earnest souls out of every nation and people and lan- 
guage, it is hard to thxxk that all is one grand imposture, 
and that the dust of the inspired fisherman no more rests 
in that vault than the Spirit of God rests upon the 
superstition that worships it. Yet, when the illusion is 

or of any visit to Borne. The authority for the miracle is Tertullian ; but 
Mosheim suspects the passage to be a metaphorical expression, afterwards 
converted into a fact, — " De Reb. Christ, ant. Const.," p. 111. 

1 There are seven basilicas at Rome, which offer the privilege of one 
thousand years' indulgence to the pilgrims who visit them all in one day, 
and all are popularly ascribed to Constantine. They are : 1. St. John 
Lateran. 2. St. Peter's. 3. St. Mary-the-Great. 4. St. Paul. 5. St. 
Sebastian. 6. St. Lawrence. And 7. The Holy Cross of Jerusalem, built to 
receive and store the relics brought from J erusalem by the empress Helena. 
(Soc. E. H., i. 17.) Of these the most venerable, perhaps the only au- 
thentic, monument was St. Paul's, a noble and undoubted remnant of 
the Constantine age, which was consumed by fire 14th July, 1823. 



" THOU ART PETER." 



67 



touched by the Ithuriel spear of history, it u returns of 
force to its own likeness." 

" Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires, 
Blown up with high conceits ingendering pride." 1 

The Catholic Church was not planted at Eome in 
the blood of the apostles, but — blessed be God ! — at 
Jerusalem, by the true High Priest, and "in His own 
blood, having obtained eternal redemption for us." 
Our access to God does not depend on pilgrimages to 
dead men's bones, but in drawing near to Jesus "with 
a true heart, in full assurance of faith." 

Could the martyrdom of St, Peter at Eome be 
granted, still the tradition only associates him with St. 
Paul, and (when corrected by Holy Scripture) would 
limit his presence to a very brief period at an advanced 
stage of the organisation of the Church. St. Paul entered 
the field as his own; we see him in possession of it 
for some years ; singularly enough, too, in connection 
with the supposed first bishops. Supposing his brother- 
apostle to come in at the last, and join in his 
dying testimony, the see would still have been the 
chair of St. Paul- — not of St. Peter — had the legend 
reposed on any historical basis. 

The legend, however, is not historical, but polemical. 
The authority of St. Peter was asserted for the sake of 
i the primacy supposed to be devolved on that apostle in 
I the famous text, "Thou art Peter;" 2 and to this argu- 
ment we must now advance. Eoman divines interpret 
this passage as conferring an infallible supremacy over 
the Universal Church, first on the apostle Peter, and 
secondly on the bishops of Eome as his perpetual suc- 
cessors. This interpretation was certainly unknown to 
the apostle himself, and to the first three centuries of 

* "Paradise Lost," iv. 808. 2 Matt. xvi. 18, 19. 

e2 



68 



THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 



the Christian Church. 1 It was never admitted by any 
of the Churches which speak the language of the New 
Testament ; and it has been rejected in every age by the 
great majority of Christians. 

With regard to the apostle himself, it is obvious that 
St. Paul knew nothing of his supremacy when he " with- 
stood him to the face because he was to be blamed; " 2 
nor when he expressly asserted his own equality in the 
apostleship. 3 The (so-called) Council of Jerusalem must 
have been equally ignorant when they placed James in 
the chair, and permitted St. Peter to take part in the 
debate as an ordinary member. 4 Peter himself makes 
no allusion to any such authority in his epistles, but 
exhorts the elders, "as a fellow-elder, to feed the flock 
of God, not as being lords over his heritage, but being 
cnsamples to the flock, that when the Chief Shepherd 
shall appear they may receive a crown of glory that 
fadeth not away." 5 It may be observed, also, that among 
the parties at Corinth who distinguished themselves by 
apostolic names, no priority is attributed to St. Peter 6 
over Paul or Apollos : he does not always enjoy even 
a nominal precedence when named along with other 
apostles. 7 

1 It must have been unknown at Rome when St. J ohn's Church ranked 
above St. Peter s. 

2 Gal. ii. 11. 4 Acts xv. 7, 12, 13. 

3 lb., G, 9. 5 1 Pet. v. 1, 2, 4. 

G 1 Cor. i. 12 ; iii. 22. Comparing these passages with 1 Cor. iv. 6, 
they by no means prove the actual presence of St. Peter at Corinth. St. 
Paul appears to have put the case these distinguished names were 
quoted in order to expose more strongly the unjustifiable character of the 
pretensions actually asserted. The true leaders were thus spared the 
confusion of a public reproof, when it was their followers that were most 
io blame. 

7 Gal. ii. 9. By Eusebius, and the fathers generally, when the two 
apostles are named together, the usage is to place Paul before Peter. See 
Hist. Ecc, iii. 21. Valesius remarks that in the seals of the Romish 
Church itself Paul is placed on the right and Peter on the left. 



PRIMITIVE BISHOPS. 



69 



The early bishops of Rome appear to have been as 
little instructed in their supremacy as the apostles. 
Clement, who according to Eusebius was the third 
bishop, and like Linus a fellow-labourer with St. Paul, 1 
wrote a letter in the name of the whole Church of Rome 
to that of Corinth. In this letter, which is still extant, 
Clement reproves, after St. Paul's example, the schis- 
matical spirit still raging in that Church. He complains 
of their having ejected ministers whom the apostles and 
their successors had appointed. 2 This was eminently 
a case for the chair of St. Peter, if its supremacy 
had then been known. But all that Clement says 
of St. Peter is, that having u undergone many suf- 

1 Phil. iv. 3. Eus. H. E., iii. 15. Coteler has collected (Pat. Apos., i. 
414) a large number of passages to the same effect. In the early Church 
" the Apostle " meant always St. Paul. 

2 " The apostles have preached to us from our Lord Jesus Christ ; 
Jesus Christ from God. Christ, therefore, was sent by God; the apostles 
by Christ. So both were orderly sent, according to the will of God. For, 
having received their command, and being thoroughly assured by the 
resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and convinced by the Word of God, 
with the fullness of the Holy Spirit, they went abroad publishing that the 
kingdom of God was at hand. And thus, preaching through countries and 
cities, they appointed the first fruits of their conversions to be bishops and 
ministers over such as should afterwards believe, having first proved them 
by the Spirit. Nor was this any new thing : seeing that long before it was 
written concerning bishops and deacons, for thus saith the Scripture in a 
certain place : ' I will appoint their overseers in righteousness, and their 
ministers in faith.' 

" So, likewise, our apostles knew, by our Lord Jesus Christ, that there 
should contentions arise on account of the ministry. And, therefore, having 
a perfect foreknowledge of this, they appointed persons, as we have before 
said, and then gave direction how, when they should die, other chosen and 
approved men should succeed in their ministry. Wherefore we cannot 
think that those may justly be thrown out of their ministry, who were 
either appointed by them, or afterwards chosen by other eminent men, 
with the consent of the whole Church ; and who have, with all lowliness 
and innocence, ministered to the flock of Christ in peace, and without 
self-interest, and were for a long time commended by all. For it would be 
no small sin in us should we cast off those from their ministry who hoiily, 
and without blame, fulfil the duties of it." — Sects, xlii. — xliv. 



70 



THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 



ferings, he was at last martyred and sent to the place 
of glory." 

Of St. Paul he writes at greater length, referring 
particularly to his Epistles to the Corinthians: from 
these he exhorts them to replace their ministers, and 
return to unity and concord. He reminds them that 
all cannot be chiliarchs, centurions, or other com- 
manders; but that the whole body is saved in Jesus 
Christ. "Christ," he declared, "is theirs who are 
humble and exalt not themselves over His nock." 
"Let us reverence our Lord Jesus Christ, whose 
blood was given for us : let us honour those who 
are set over us, respect the aged, and instruct the 
younger, even in the fear of the Lord." 1 There is not 
the most distant allusion to any prerogative at Eome, and 
instead of "health and the apostolic benediction," the 
epistle closes with this evangelical petition: "JSTow God, 
the Inspector of all things, the Father of spirits, and the 
Lord of all flesh, who hath chosen our Lord J esus Christ, 
and us by Him to be His peculiar people, grant to 
every soul of man, that calleth upon His glorious and 
holy name, faith, fear, peace, long-suffering, patience, 
temperance, holiness, and sobriety, unto all well-pleasing 
in His sight ; through our High Priest and Protector, 
Jesus Christ, by whom be glory and majesty, and power, 
and honour, unto Him now, and for evermore. Amen." 

The other apostolical fathers are equally silent ; and 
no point of history is more certain than that the primacy 
of St. Peter was never heard of during the first three 
centuries of the Church. 

With regard to the text in Matt, xvi., Gregory of 
ISFyssa, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and Juvenal 
of Jerusalem agree in understanding the Rock to be, 



1 Sects, xvi. — xxi. 



POWER OF THE KEYS, 



71 



not Peter, but the faith which he had just professed, 
that Christ is the Son of God. The same interpreta- 
tion was held hj Hilary, Ambrose, and Augustine, 
in the west ; and even by some of the popes, as by 
Gregory the Great, Felix in., Nicholas i., and 
John vin. 1 Jerome was of opinion that our Lord 
referred to Himself, the Christ whom Peter confessed, 
as the Kock: while others, as Origen, Cyprian, and 
Basil, understood the promise as belonging to Peter 
in common with the other apostles, the twelve foun- 
dations of the New Jerusalem. 2 

In regard to the remainder of the text, the substance 
of it is repeated to the other apostles, and to the whole 
Church, in Matt, xviii. 18. The grant of the keys was 
understood to mean the commission to preach the Gospel, 
baptize disciples, guide the flock, and exclude the re- 
fractory from communion. Thus St. Peter opened the 
kingdom of heaven to the J ews on the day of Pentecost, 
and to the Gentiles in the baptism of Cornelius. He shut 
the door upon Ananias and Sapphira. But although he 
was the first to execute these functions, and is called the 
first apostle, 3 yet he was followed with equal authority 

1 Barrow's " Supremacy." It should be observed, that although Peter is 
commonly translated Rock, it is not the same word with the Rock on which 
Christ founds the Church. Petros is properly a mok-stone — a stone which 
can be thrown or moved. When the living Rock is meant (Matt. vii. 24 ; 
xxvii. 51, 60. Mark xv. 46. Luke vi. 48 ; viii. 6, 13. Rev. vi. 15, 16. 
1 Cor. x. 4), the word is always Petra ; and this is the word employed by 
our Lord to denote the foundation of His Church. The only other places 
in the New Testament where Petra occurs are Rom. ix. 33, and 1 Peter ii. 8, 
where it signifies, not a foundation, but a stumbling-stone : the idea is 
still that of a point of the living Rock jutting out of the ground. Petros 
occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, but in the name of the apostle ; 
and though it is used in a few places of the Septuagint, in the meaning of 
Petra, our Lord in varying the word must naturally be understood to 
imply a varied signification. "Thou art Petros, and on this Petra I will 
build my Church" — is very different from : " I will build my Church on thee." 
2 Rev. xxi. 14 ; comp. 1 Cor. x. 4. 3 Matt. x. 2, 



72 



THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 



by the others. " For the rest of the apostles," says 
Cyprian, " were the same also that Peter was; en- 
dowed with equal fellowship of honour and power; but 
the original proceeds from unity, that the Church may 
be shown to be one." 1 

Such were the received interpretations of this cele- 
brated text, down to the fourth and fifth, centuries ; none 
agreeing with modern Borne, or recognising any Scrip- 
tural authority in that see oyer others. The equal right 
of all bishops and their Churches (as regulated by 
the canons) was then the invariable doctrine. They 
differed from one another, on points not prescribed in 
Scripture, with perfect independence. Thus the eastern 
Churches kept Easter on the fourteenth day of the first 
month, while in the West the feast was deferred to the 
following Sunday. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, visited 
Borne for the purpose of discussing this point with 
Anicetus (a.d. 157-168). Each pleaded the custom 
of his Church, and ended by allowing the same benefit 
to the other; but it is remarkable that while Poly- 
carp alleged the authority of St. John (by whom he 
was said to have been placed at Smyrna) and of other 
apostles, we hear nothing from Anicetus of the authority 
of St. Peter : he only said he must retain the usage of 
the elders, his predecessors. 2 

The same controversy was more hotly conducted by 
Yictor (a.d. 192-201). Some of the eastern Churches 
then agreed with the Boman usage ; but those of Asia 
adhering to their own tradition, Yictor threatened them 
with excommunication. He was answered by a long 
letter from Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, alleging that 
he had seven relations of his own, bishops who had always 

» ' ; I)e Imitate Eccl.," 113 : Ed. Bas. 1558. The other apostles were 
not ordained or governed by Peter. 
3 Ep. Irensei. ap. Eus. H. E., v. 24. 



> 



OPPOSITION TO ROME. 



73 



observed the same custom, and that having reached sixty- 
five years of age, u and read the whole Scripture through," 
he was not at all terrified by the threats of Borne ; for 
greater men than himself had said "we ought to obey 
God rather than men." These were St. Peter's own 
words. Yictor issued his excommunication, but it 
was not acknowledged even by the Churches which 
agreed with him on the point in dispute. Xrenseus, bishop 
of Lyons, wrote to him in the name of the Gallic Church, 
that whole Churches were not to be cut off for observing 
their ancient customs ; and the Asiatics continued their 
practice till it was changed by common consent at the 
Council of NicaBa. 

In all this controversy nothing was said of the au- 
thority of St. Peter. The first Eoman bishop who claimed 
obedience on this account was Stephen (a.d. 253-257), 
just at the time that we first hear of the monuments on 
the Vatican. He had a difference with the African 
Church, then presided over by pope Cyprian. A council 
at Carthage had decided, some years before, that heretics 
must be re-baptized before they could be admitted into 
the Catholic Church. The same practice was pursued in 
some of the eastern Churches, but it was always con- 
demned in Italy, Gaul, and Spain. This order was 
renewed by two councils under Cyprian, who sent their 
resolutions to Stephen. The latter replied in a violent 
letter, asserting his authority as successor of St. Peter, 
and threatening the Africans with excommunication. 1 
Cyprian retorted by accusing his brother-pope of im- 
pertinence, ignorance, and childishness. He styles 
him an abettor of heretics ; and, calling another 
council, protested against any one setting up for a 
bishop of bishops, and presuming to reduce his colleagues 



1 Cyp., ep. 1x2 iv. 1, 10 ; ep. lxxv. 



74 THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 

to subjugation. 1 The African Church retained its practice 
in spite of the pope, till it was condemned by agreement 
in the Councils of Aries and Mceea. In the course of 
this dispute, Firmilian of Cappadocia went so far as to 
liken the pope to Iscariot rather than Peter, affirming 
that his excommunication of others would only cut off 
himself from the unity of the Church. 2 

The First General Council placed Rome on a level 
with Alexandria, Antioch, and other Churches : it was 
simply the metropolitan see of southern Italy. In the 
controversies which subsequently desolated the eastern 
Church each party sought the sympathy of the "West. 
Athanasius and his adversaries both appealed to Julius, 
but when he summoned them to a council to discuss the 
question, the Eusebians fell back upon the fact "that all 
bishops were of equal authority, without regard to the 
magnitude of their cities." This was true, but, as the 
pope replied, they had themselves invited his decision, 
and it was not his own opinion, but that of the bishops 
of Italy and those parts, that he communicated. There 
is not a word of St. Peter in the whole letter. 3 

At a later period of the contest, when Liberius for- 
sook the truth under the menaces of Constantius, no one 
admitted either the infallibility or the authority of the 

1 Cyp. Cone. Carth., a.d. 256. 

2 Baronius affirms that Stephen excommunicated the Churches of Africa, 
Cilicia, Cappadocia, Galatia, and Egypt ; but Valesius thinks he was 
content to threaten them. (Note on Eus., vii. 5.) The Alexandrian pope 
Dionysius was certainly not aware of his misfortune, for he corresponded 
with Stephen, tried to moderate his anger, and induced his successor to 
drop the dispute. 

3 See Julius' Letter in Ath. Apol. Adv. Ar., 11. In one place he 
claims a right to be consulted before any decision is taken with respect to 
a bishop of Alexandria. The allusion is not clear whether Rome had 
some special connection with Alexandria, or, as seems more probable, that 
a patriarch of Antioch should not have incriminated a brother-patriarch 
without first referring to Rome, the only other see of equal rank. 



GROWTH OF THE ROMAN SEE. 



75 



Eoman prelate. Athanasius stood alone against the 
world for the Divinity and Atonement of his Bedeemer. 
Liberius himself repented of his apostasy when the 
courage and moderation of the Alexandrian pope had 
stemmed the tide of heresy, and the emperor's death 
brought happier days. 

The Eoman see was ever after the champion of 
orthodoxy. The barbarians who broke up the empire 
were either heathens or Arians, and the Greek em- 
perors and patriarchs were perpetually involved in 
new heresies. At Borne the senate was too feeble, 
the nobles too luxurious, to furnish men of action for 
the times. The dissolution of the old Pagan hierarchy 
left the bishops and clergy to take the conduct of the 
religious emotions, Paganism had fallen, but the ground 
was still cumbered with its ruins ; society was to be re- 
organised ; the opulent were to be taught almsgiving ; 
the middle classes to be set to work ; the vast pauper 
population to be sought out and relieved. These evan- 
gelical labours could not fail to raise the bishop to influence. 
The magistrates were constantly changing, and conspiring 
for their own advantage; the troops were more dreaded 
than the enemy ; but the bishop was always at his post, 
preaching, visiting, blessing, and praying for all. Hence 
the Boman see became in the fourth century the centre 
and rallying-point of all who were animated by a senti- 
ment of patriotism, or a zeal for the integrity of the faith. 
It gained, in short, a practical influence which was 
independent of ecclesiastical theories, and was not sub- 
verted by the scandals which too frequently disgraced 
the ecclesiastical order. 

By the middle of the fourth century the Boman see 
was become rich and ambitious. The account which an 
eye-witness gives of the admission of Damasus (a.d. 366) 
reads more like a conquest than an election. Ursinius 



76 



THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 



was already chosen and consecrated, when Daraasus, at 
the head of an armed party, broke into the church, 
massacred the people, and finally fought his way into 
the Later an, where he received the episcopate. Jerome, 
who was a friend to Damasus, reverses the parts ; bnt 
ail agree that the city was involved in a civil war till 
the prefect banished the competitor who had the weaker 
party. Even after that, Damasns commanded in per- 
son an assault on the church where his opponents 
were assembled, fired it, and slaughtered about one 
hundred persons. 1 

It appears that Damasns enjoyed the suffrages of 
the rich ladies. His friend calls him the virgin doctor 
of the virgin Church ; 2 but Ammianus Marceilinus the 
heathen historian, who was then at Borne, gives another 
picture : " I do not wonder," he says, " that men who 
are fond of show and parade should quarrel and fight for 
the episcopal chair. If they succeed they are sure to be 
enriched by the offerings of the ladies ; they appear no 
more on foot, but in stately chariots and gorgeously 
attired. They keep costly and sumptuous tables, nay, 
surpass the emperors themselves in the splendour and 
magnificence of their entertainments." 3 " Make me 
bishop of Rome," said the Pagan prefect, "and I will 
turn Christian directly." 4 This luxury drew down some 
severe laws of mortmain from the emperor, of which 
Ambrose and Jerome complain bitterly. 5 They were 
abrogated in a.d. 455. Clearly nothing had then been 
heard of Constantino's " donation." 

The emperors, however, found it expedient to favour 
the growth of a great patriarchal authority in the 
west. Yalentinian 11. granted the pope authority to 



1 Bower, i. 183. 

2 Hier., ep. xlix. 

3 Amm. Mar., xxvii. p. 237. 



4 Hier., ep. Ixi. 

5 Arnb., ep. xii. ; Hier., ep. ii. 



V 



QUESTION OF APPEAL. 



77 



hear and decide causes relating to bishops, whom he 
altogether exempted from the civil jurisdiction. 1 This 
was a great boon at a time when the secular court 
freely applied torture both to witnesses and accused 
persons. Though intended, perhaps, to apply only to 
the subitfbicarian provinces, the privilege was claimed 
by other bishops, and contributed to augment the 
papal jurisdiction. A constitution of Theodosius the 
Great (379-395) ordains that all nations subject to 
his sway shall receive the religion delivered by St. 
Peter to the Eomans. 2 

These grants were, beyond question, the foundation 
of the papal jurisdiction in the western Empire. Pro- 
ceeding from the secular power, they were not under- 
stood as superseding any episcopal rights, as appears 
from the opposition which continued to be offered on 
the question of appeals. The Pirst General Council 
ordained that controversies should be determined in 
the provinces where they arose, but the Council of 
Sarclica (347) granted an appeal to Eome under con- 
ditions, the extent of which is much disputed. The 
Greeks repudiated this canon altogether, affirming that 
it was passed after their bishops had left the council; 
and it was superseded by the second canon of the 
Council of Constantinople (a.d. 381), one of the four 
General Councils whose authority was declared by 
Gregory the Great to be equal to that of the four 
Gospels. Nevertheless, in the Eoman code, the Sar- 
dican constitution was inserted among the acts of the 
Council of Mcsea, and the decree of Constantinople 
was interpolated with a proviso, to save "the rights of 
the Eoman see." 3 The African Church detected the 
fraud, and strictly prohibited all appeals beyond sea. 

1 Bar. ad Ann., 368; Cod. Theod., cap. 80 ; Bower, i. 187. 

2 Cod. Theod, xvi. 1,2; Banke, i. 12. 3 Cone, torn, ii., 1148. 



78 



THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 



The divisions in the eastern Church were afterwards 
carried to an extent which forced the common sense and 
common piety of Christianity to take refuge in the West. 
The Nestorian controversy, followed, through a natural 
reaction, by the Eutychian and Monophysite heresies, 
involved the deposition of all the oriental patriarchs, 
the death of several, and the conversion of a General 
Council into a " den of thieves." Amid the crash of 
falling columns, Borne alone stood unshaken. Cyril 
held the proxy of Celestine i. in the deposition of 
Nestorius, and, according to papal writers, this was the 
ground of his authority in that proceeding. But Alex- 
andria always laid claim to the first authority in the 
East, and Cyril had assumed his place before his brother- 
pope came to his support. 1 Celestine' s intervention was 
censured by some of the patriarchs, and at the Council 
of Ephesus, after the removal of Cyril, not the Boman 
legates, but the patriarch of Jerusalem, became president. 

It was at the Council of Chalcedon that the Boman 
see first attained to authority in the East. The patriarch 
of Constantinople was the person originally incriminated. 
In the proceedings against him, Dioscorus of Alexandria 
presided above the Boman legates. The violence of the 
Alexandrian prelate produced counter-charges, on which 
he also was deposed, and in these charges the patriarchs 
of Antioch and J erusalem were both implicated. Leo of 
Borne remained the only patriarch not under personal 
disability. His writings, though not without some 
hesitation, were adopted by the wearied orientals as the 
true exposition of the Catholic faith. His legates, for 

1 The sentence of deposition pronounced against Nestorius at the Council 
of Ephesus is based on the "canons and the letter from our most holy 
father and colleague, Celestine bishop of the Roman Church." This is no 
more than would be said of any other absent patriarch. Celestine's own 
letter to the Council allows the equal share of all bishops in the guardian- 
ship of the faith. 



CANON OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 



79 



the first time in the East, were allowed to preside, 
and the sentence against Dioscorus ran in the name of 
" the most holy archbishop of Eome with the apostle 
Peter, by his legate, and the assembled Council " 
(a.d. 451). 

In yielding this precedence, however, the eastern 
bishops insisted on re-enacting in larger terms the canon 
of the Second General Council which defined the rela- 
tions of Eome and Constantinople to the other sees : 
" Whereas (they say) the see of Old Eome had been not 
undeservedly distinguished by the fathers with some 
privilege, because that city was the seat of the Empire ; 
the fathers of Constantinople were prompted by the 
same motive to distinguish the most holy see of New 
Eome with equal privileges, thinking it fit that the city 
which they saw honoured with the empire and the 
senate, and equalled in every civil privilege to Old 
Eome, should be equalled in ecclesiastical matters.' 51 A 
canon was therefore passed that the bishop of New Eome 
should enjoy the same honour as the Old, on account of 
the translation of the empire. 2 The canon was so offen- 
sive to Leo, that, though enacted by a General Council, 
it was never admitted into the Eoman Code. 

Soon after, the Pelagian heresy calling for similar 
exertions in the West, Celestine i. sent letters to the 
bishops of Gaul, entreating them to defend the doc- 
trine of Augustine and St. Paul. He is said to have 
despatched Palladius into Britain with the same ob- 
ject ; but other accounts represent Palladius as a dis- 
ciple of Germaine, bishop of Auxerre, whom the British 
Church invited to its assistance. Germaine, obeying the 
summons, was present with Lupus, bishop of Troyes, 
at the Council of Yerulam (a.d. 429), where Pelagius 



1 Cone, iv., 838; Bower, ii. 80. 2 Cone. Chalc. Can., xxviii. 



80 



THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 



(who was a native of Wales) was condemned. 1 A 
letter of Fasticlius, supposed to be bishop of London 
at the time, is still extant, but neither this letter nor 
the Council make any allusion to the pope. 2 

The right of appeal naturally conceded to the 
mother Church, by daughter or dependent bodies, was 
warmly denied to Eome by the Churches of Gaul. 
They were sensible of no obligations to Eome, and 
had, in fact, received their Christianity from the East. 
Leo the Great expressly disclaimed the authority of 
ordaining the Gallic bishops, yet he was so offended 
with Hilary of Aries for resisting the right of appeal, 
that he resorted to the unprecedented step of arresting 
his person at a conference in Eome. Hilary escaped 
from prison, and was pursued by an excommunication, 
from which he refused to purchase absolution at the cost 
of his independence. Leo then applied to the emperor 
Yalentinian in., and obtained a rescript requiring the 
bishops of Gaul and of the other provinces to submit to 
the orders of the Apostolic see, and enjoining the magis- 
trates to compel their obedience (a.d. 445). 3 This law 
was cited by pope Hilary (a.d. 464) as the ground of a 
jurisdiction confessedly beyond the canons of the Church. 4 

In this state the question rested till the fall of the 
western Empire, when Eome, having sunk to be the 
capital of the Italian kingdom, and Constantinople alone 
retaining the imperial dignity, pope Gelasius saw fit to 

1 Pelagius is supposed to be the Latin for Morgan. The bishop's 
name survives at St. G-ermains, in Cornwall, and at Llanarmon (the town 
of Germain) in Denbighshire. 

2 Palladius, it would appear, passed on to Ireland, where the natives 
were then called Scots ; after making some conversions, he returned to 
Rome, and by the pope was appointed bishop of that island. He died 
a.d. 431, and was succeeded by St. Patrick. 

3 Cone, iii. 1401 ; Leo, ep. x. ; Bower, ii. 14. 

4 Cone, iv. 1045 ; Bower, ii. 151. 



DECREE OE GELASIUS. 



81 



repudiate the support both of ecclesiastical canons and 
secular law, and rest the primacy absolutely on apos- 
tolic authority. In the last year of his pontificate 
(a.d. 496) he issued a decree declaring that "It was not 
to the councils or decrees of men that the Holy Soman 
and Apostolic Church owed her primacy, but to the words 
of Christ, saying in the Gospel, 'Thou art Peter/ thereby 
building the Church on him as upon a rock, that nothing 
could shake : — That the Soman Church, not having 
spot or wrinkle, is consecrated and exalted above all 
churches by the presence, death, and martyrdom of the 
two chief apostles Peter and Paul, who suffered at 
Some under Nero, not at different times, as the heretics 
say, but on the same day : — That the Soman Church is the 
first church, because founded by the apostle ; the Church 
of Alexandria the second, because founded by his disciple 
Mark in his name; and that of Antioch the third, 
because St. Peter dwelt there before he came to Some, 
and in that city the faithful were first called Christians." 1 
To the imperial see of Constantinople the pope vouch- 
safed no precedence at all, as not being of "apostolic" 
foundation : a piece of singular ingratitude to the great 
emperor, on whom the papacy seeks to father so many of her 
privileges. Eut Some was now preparing for that long 
struggle with the Byzantine Court, which resulted in the 
rupture of all her relations with the eastern empire, and 
the erection of the papal see itself into a political power. 

The doctrine thus developed by Gelasius was always 
denounced in the eastern Church as false and heretical ; 
it was long resisted by the western metropolitans, but, 
being taken up by the barbarians, 2 as they rose into 

1 Cone, iv. 1260 ; Bower, ii. 233. 

2 An example of this kind is recorded by Bede (iii. 25) in the synod 
at Whitby, held to decide between Wilfrid and Colman respecting the 
observance of Easter (a.d. 664). Colman, who came from Scotland, and 

Gr 



82 



FALL OF THE WEST. 



importance, it established itself amid the decay of letters 
and religion as the central dogma of the Latin Com- 
munion. 

with the British Churches, professed the eastern ride, quoted the authority 
of St. John and St. Coluniba for the time of the feast. His opponent, 
besides pointing out a discrepancy between the British usage and the 
Asiatic, affirmed that St. Peter was the author of the Koinan custom, and 
demanded if they meant to prefer St. Coluniba to the blessed prince of the 
apostles, to whom our Lord said, "Thou art Peter," etc. King Oswy at once 
interposed, to ask Colman if it were true that this was said to Peter. The 
bishop assented. "Then," exclaimed the royal theologian, "I will obey 
St. Peter, lest when I come to the gates of heaven, he should refuse to 
open me the door." 



CONTEMPORARY SUCCESSIONS (EXARCHATE). 



Justinian I. 



Justin ii. 



Tiberius . . 
Mauritius. 



Heraclius 



Constantine in 
Heracleon 
. Constans n 



( Constantineiv, 
i Pogonatus. 



Justinian n. 



Longinus. 



Smaragdas. 
Eomanus. 



Callinichus. 
Smaragdas rest. 



John Demiges. 



Eleutherius , 
Isaac . . , 



Olympus 
T. Calliopas 



Theodore 
John 



POPES OF HOME. 



Pelagius i. 
John in. 



Benedict i. 
Pelagius n. 



Leontius. 
Tiberius. 



Justinian n. rest. 



Phillipicus 
Anastasius n. 



Theodosius in. 
Leo ii. 



Constantine 
Copronymus , 



Theophylact 
John Eizocope 
Scholasticus . . 



Paul. 
Eutychius 



Gregory i. 



Sabinian. 
Boniface in. 
Boniface rv. 



Deusdedit. 
Boniface v. 
Honorius i. 



Severinus 
John iv. 



Theodore 
Martin i. 
Eugenius i. 



Eugenius i. 
Vitalian. . 



Adeodatus. 

Donus. 
Agatho . . 
Eeo. n. . . 
Benedict n. 
John v. 
Conon. 
Sergius i. 



John vi. 



John vii. 
I Sisinnius. 
( Constantine. 



Gregory n. 



Gregory m. 
Zachary. 



Stephen m. 



KINGS OF 
LOMBARD Y. 



Alboin. 

Clepho. 
Thirty Dukes 



Antharis 



Theudelinda. 
Agilulph. 



Adelvald. 



Ariwald. 
Rotharis. 



Rodoald. 
Aribert I. 



Grimoald. 



Bertharith. 



Cunibert. 



Luithbert. 
Aiibert n. 



Ansprand. 
Luitprand. 



Rachis. 
Astulphus. 



PATRIARCHS OF 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 



Eutychius. 
John nr. 



Eutychius restored. 
John iv. (the Faster) 



Cyriacus. 



Thomas L 
Sergius. 



Pynhus. 



Paul ii. 

Pyrrhus restored. 
Peter. 

Thomas n. 

John v. 

Constantine r. 
Tlieodore. 



George. 

Theodore restored. 
Paul ni. 



Cyrus. 



John vi. 
Germanus. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

THE EXARCHATE. 

The Justinian Code — Influence of Christianity upon Roman Law — The 
Lombard Kingdom — The Exarchate of Ravenna — Subjugation of 
the City and Church of Rome — The Three Chapters — Deposition and 
Death of Vigilius — Gregory the Great — Mission to Britain — Con- 
version of the English — Dissensions with the East — The Monothelite 
Heresy — Martyrdom of Pope Martin — Theodore of Canterbury — 
Pope and Patriarch — Dissensions with the Emperor — Conversion of 
the Germans — Leo the Isaurian — Image Worship. 

Bitterly as Eome had resented the indignity of bar- 
barian domination, her return under the imperial sceptre 
was only a change of servitude. Though still boasting 
the Eoman name, the empire was now altogether Greek, 
and Greek of the Byzantine not the Athenian stamp. 
The court, the language, the church, were Greek. The 
true Eomans were styled Latin, and under cover of that 
rustic appellation, the insolent Orientals regarded the 
mother West as a tributary province. Its government was 
confided to an Exarch who resided at Eavenna with the 
entire civil, military, and ecclesiastical power. The Seven- 
hilled City became a subject municipality, and the prefect 
of Eome was compelled to receive the commands of a 
barbarian emperor, 1 through a satrap who was not unfre- 
quently a eunuch. This degrading bondage lasted sixty 
years, during which the allegiance of Eome was natu- 
rally more and more centred on the resident bishop. 
The chief benefit connected with this period was 

1 Justinian was by birth a Dacian peasant, adopted by his uncle Justin, 
who, enlisting in the army as a private soldier, rose to the command, and 
thence to the possession, of the palace. 



86 



THE EXARCHATE. 



the promulgation of the famous Eoman Code, to which 
Justinian has been allowed the honour of giving his 
name, though he had little to do with it beyond encum- 
bering the laws of his predecessors with his own inferior 
Novels. 1 The portions of real authority are the Code, 
the Pandects, and the Institutes ; the first contained 
the written laws, the second, the judicial rulings, and 
the last, a review of the principles or elements of Eoman 
jurisprudence. All were collected and arranged by the 
most eminent civilians, and being published with imperial 
authority (a.d. 565), the work became the text-book not 
only of the colleges of Constantinople, Eome, and 
Berytus, but of all the schools and universities which 
have since pursued the study of the civil law. This 
was the most systematic effort that had yet appeared to 
arrange the principles of natural and social law by the 
light of Christianity : and it will help to illustrate the 
advantage which legislation has derived from revelation, 
to compare some of its features with the wisdom of 
heathen antiquity. 

1. In Pagan Eome, all citizens were declared equal 
before the law ; but only the free-born, i.e. the children 
of two free parents, were recognised as citizens. The 
offspring of unequal unions followed the inferior parent, 
and the taint of a servile birth descended to the remotest 
posterity. Even emancipated slaves were only libertini, 
not liberi. Their position and rights were broadly sepa- 
rated from those of genuine citizens. Moreover, eman- 
cipation was itself restricted by numerous limitations ; 
in fine, the so-called republic was a small society of 
privileged citizens, intolerant of the slightest restraint 

1 " These are the decisions which Justinian affected to deliver from his 
own imperial wisdom ; so far as they depart from previous rulings, they 
may be safely attributed to the bribes which were shamelessly received by 
this selfish and vainglorious prince." — Decline and Fall, c. xliv. 



> 



THE CIVIL CODE, 



87 



on themselves, but tyrannising without mercy over a 
disfranchised population. When the emperors assumed 
the prerogative of creating freemen, the privilege was 
often purchased at their hands; 1 but by that time the 
freedom was reduced to a name as regarded political 
power, and only availed to save the person from the 
stripes and tortures freely lavished on others. Justi- 
nian's Code abolished the distinction of libertine with all 
restraints upon emancipation. The manumitted slave 
became absolutely free, and his blood was no longer 
servile. The Gospel had not yet effected full emancipa- 
tion, but its spirit was, from the first, to ameliorate and 
extinguish slavery. 

2. The Pagan law gave the father absolute power 
over his family; he could punish wife and son with 
disherison, death, or slavery, at pleasure : a brutal 
parent might even sell his daughter to shame and irre- 
deemable bondage. This despotism was now utterly 
abolished. Again, new-born children were left on the 
ground until the father should take them up : if he 
declined they perished unpitied. This was made murder 
by the civil law and punished with death. 

3. Marriage, by the old Pagan law, was the reduc- 
tion of the wife to perpetual slavery : her life might be 
taken, and was taken, at the will of the husband. To 
protect themselves, women resorted to a less solemn cere- 
monial which allowed of divorce, and the result was 
that wedlock degenerated into a purely temporary al- 
liance. Justinian's Code regulated marriage and abo- 
lished divorce ; but the corruptions of the times induced 
his successor to restore the permission of divorce by 
mutual consent, lest murder should be the result. Such 
are some of the rights of persons secured by the civil law. 



» Acts xxii. 28. 



88 



THE EXARCHATE. 



4. "With respect to things, the Code denned the con- 
ditions of acquiring property, and established the prin- 
ciple of hereditary succession, with equal share to all 
sons and daughters. The power of prolonging the 
dominion of the dead by means of wills, had been 
granted by the law of the Twelve Tables : and in ac- 
cordance with the old parental despotism, it extended 
to the entire chsinheriting of wife or child at the caprice 
of the testator. This unnatural authority was limited 
by the Christian Code. The testator was obliged to 
specify the offence of his disinherited offspring, and if 
a fourth portion of the estate were not assigned to them, 
they could appeal from parental tyranny to the justice 
of the magistrate. 

5. Crimes were still punished with inhuman severity, 
especially when committed against the emperor ; but the 
Code was far less sanguinary than the old Twelve Tables. 
Its greatest fault was the union of civil, criminal, and 
what is now called equitable, jurisdiction in a single 
judge, and that judge appointed and removed at the will 
of the emperor. These magistrates were further em- 
powered to apply torture to the witnesses and the 
accused, and this power was so frightfully abused that 
the Italian bishops hailed it as a great privilege to be 
allowed the judgment of the pope and his council. 

The publication of this Code, with all its faults, was 
one of the greatest and most permanent blessings ever 
experienced from the labours of mankind. It laid the 
basis for a consistent administration of law and justice. 
It rescued a large part of the world at a stroke from the 
narrow despotism of local magistrates. The Church 
accepted it with gratitude, and though it was overborne 
for a time in the barbarous convulsions of the West, 
the nations of Europe, as they emerged out of anarchy, 
were glad to mould their legislation on its principles. 



> 



THE LOMBARD KINGDOM. 



89 



This celebrated Code, with the valour of his generals 
and the skill of his architects, have rendered the reign 
of Justinian illustrious ; but he was a weak, cruel prince, 
whose misgovernment both of Church and State rapidly 
hastened the downfall of the empire. To dispossess the 
Lepidee, who had seized on the intrenchments vacated 
by the Ostrogoths in Pannonia, he invited the " Long- 
beards " across the Danube, and saw without concern 
the advance of these formidable barbarians to the shores 
of the Adriatic. With the same selfish policy he saved 
Constantinople from his dangerous auxiliaries, the Avars, 
by permitting them to pass into the heart of Poland and 
Germany, and spread over the region between the 
Danube and the Elbe. The ruinous consequence was 
precipitated by Greek treachery. The eunuch Narses 
revenged his dismissal from command by secretly inviting 
the Lombard sinto Italy ; and all its provinces, from the 
Trentine Hills to Eavenna and the gates of Eome, became 
their prey without a battle or a siege. Alboin was 
proclaimed king of Italy at Pavia (a.d. 570), and thirty 
Lombard dukes planted their banners in different cities, 
levying a third of the produce from the subjugated 
population for the support of their armed retainers. 

The Lombard kingdom extended from the Alps 
to the sea. The exarch remained shut up in Eavenna, 
and Eome was only saved from destruction by the 
courage and piety of pope Gregory the Great, who 
encountered the Arian conqueror with the arms of re- 
ligion, and succeeded, by the help of his queen Theolinda, 
in converting a large part of the nation. The Iron 
Crown of Lombardy was the reward of their submission 
to the Church. 1 

1 This famous crown, presented by Gregory to Theolinda, is a jointed 
band of gold, enriched with jewels and lined with an inner circlet of iron, 
said to be forged out of one the nails of the True Cross which the empress 



90 THE EXARCHATE. 

The Lombard conquests reduced the empire to the 
immediate jurisdiction of Bavenna, the provinces of 
Eome and Naples, with the islands of Yeniee, Sardinia, 
Corsica, and Sicily. Calabria, which forms the foot of the 
Italian boot, was subsequently recovered, but the rest of 
Italy obeyed the Lombards for a period of 200 years. 1 

The exarch ruled at Bavenna over the modern 
Bomagna, Ferrara, and Commachio, with five cities 
on the Adriatic between Bimini and Ancona. Naples, 
being separated by hostile lands, was granted the privi- 
lege of electing her own duke, while Venice, becoming 
independent through commerce, rose to the rank of an 
ally rather than a subject to the empire. The Boman 
duchy extended along the coast from Civita Yecchia 
to Terracina, and up the Tiber as far as Narni, in- 
cluding all the Tuscan, Sabine, and Latin conquests of 
the old republic. The prefect of the city received his 
orders from the exarch, who occasionally came in person 
to receive the homage and appropriate the treasures of 
the humiliated capital. 

This ignominious subjection was especially galling 
to the Church of Borne. The bishop and clergy had 
espoused the cause of the orthodox emperor against 
their barbarian neighbours, partly from a proper zeal 

Helena sent to Rome. It is still in the cathedral of Monza, about ten 
miles from Milan, where it is used in the coronation of the kings of Italy. 
Napoleon I. placed it on his own head in the year 1805, and Victor 
Emmanuel was crowned with the same relic in 1861. A far richer speci- 
men of Lombard art was the crown of Theolinda's second husband, 
Agilulph, duke of Milan. It was of gold, adorned with images of Christ 
between two angels, surrounded by the twelve apostles. The French 
stole it from the Italians in 1799, and some meaner thief stole it from the 
Imperial Library at Paris, in 1804. 

1 The Lombards learnt architecture from the Italians ; their buildings 
belong to the Romanesque style ; a chapel erected at Friuli, in the eighth 
century, presents one of the earliest specimens of the intersecting vault, 
which afterwards became the chief feature of what is called the Gothic 
style. 



SUBJUGATION OP THE CITY AND CHUECH. 91 

for religious truth, but more, perhaps, with the desire 
of removing the temporal sovereignty to a greater 
distance from the Holy see. They expected in return 
the respect and confidence of a grateful prince, the full 
enjoyment of their ecclesiastical rights, with the 
temporal honour and authority which they felt to be 
due to their moral influence in the State. But Jus- 
tinian possessed neither the gratitude, the good sense, 
nor the statesmanship of Constantine. Instead of 
allying himself to the Church as a disciple, protector, and 
Mend, he was bent on asserting the imperial preroga- 
tive, in matters of faith and worship. He found the 
spirit of western churchmanship to be very different 
from that of his own ecclesiastical creatures in the East, 
and the Eoman see, which was often employed as its 
mouthpiece, became an object of jealousy and suspicion 
at Constantinople. The emperor retained and tightened 
the bonds of State control over the popes. ~No election 
could be made to the vacant see without the permission 
of the exarch ; his confirmation or the emperor's must be 
obtained before enthroning the elect. The imperial 
orders were issued to the pope as to an officer of the 
crown, and implicit obedience was demanded in the 
name at once of loyalty and religion. 

Such a position must be intolerable to any church 
which believes itself entrusted with the ministry of a 
Kingdom which is not of this world, and it was easy to 
see that, of all churches, that of Eome was the least 
likely to accept it. In the conflict which ensued 
the popes were not the first aggressors, Justinian, who 
believed himself to be the light and rule of orthodoxy, 
shared his throne with a beautiful actress whose caprice it 
was to patronise the heretics. The patriarch Anthemius 
having incurred the emperor's displeasure by embracing 
one of the many forms of Eutychianism, was deposed by 



92 



THE EXARCHATE. 



pope Agapetus, whom Justinian summoned from Eome 
for the purpose. The pope died at Constantinople, after 
consecrating a new patriarch ; whereupon the empress 
Theodora secretly wrote to his successor to reverse the 
proceedings at Eome. Silverius refusing, the empress 
had recourse to the archdeacon Yigilius, who had 
attended Agapetus to the East, and was still at Constanti- 
nople. This man, being a disappointed candidate for 
the papacy, 1 eagerly caught at her offers. Though he 
had himself assisted in all the proceedings of Agapetus, 
he returned to Eome carrying orders from Theodora to 
Eelisarius, to expel Silverius and place himself in the 
chair of St. Peter. The brave old soldier hesitated ; for 
it was mainly through the influence of Silverius that 
Eome had admitted the imperial garrison. Theodora, 
however, by the uxoriousness of the emperor, possessed 
imperial authority, and Yigilius having backed her 
mandate with a promise of two hundred gold pieces for 
himself, the general decided that obedience was the first 
duty of a soldier. Silverius was arrested on a charge of 
treasonable intercourse with the Goths, and having been 
stripped of his pall, was transported into Greece in the 
garb of a monk. A new election took place under the 
orders of Eelisarius, and Yigilius was chosen. 

Having thus attained the object of his ambition, the 
new pope discovered the sinfulness of heresy and 
simony, and refused to complete his bargain either 
with the empress or the general ! Meantime Silverius 
managed to gain an audience of Justinian (who had 
been kept in ignorance of his wife's proceedings), 

1 Vigilius was nominated by Boniface II. to succeed himself in virtue of 
a power conceded to the pope by the Roman synod. But the nomination 
was set aside as an infraction of the rights of the crown, and three 
elections were subsequently carried into effect without any regard to 
Vigilius. 



THE THREE CHAPTERS. 



and obtained an order for a new trial. His reappear- 
ance at Borne filled the conspirators with dismay. 
Yigilins hastened to renew his engagements, and 
Belisarins haying delivered their victim into his hands, 
Silverins was hurried off to an uninhabited island, where 
he perished by starvation, or some swifter murder. 

Yigilins was now compelled to pay the stipulated 
price of his elevation. Belisarins received his bribe, and 
the pope sent letters of communion to the deposed 
patriarch, in which he openly anathematised the Catholic 
creed of Chalcedon. To save the Eoman see from the 
taint of heresy, it is suggested that if Silverius had not 
yet breathed his last, Yigilins was but an anti-pope. 
Moreover, as there was no second election after the 
completion of the murder, Yigilins was perhaps never a 
genuine pope at all. 

Justinian, when informed that Silverius was dead, 
wrote to congratulate his successor, and Yigilins 
replied with a solemn profession of the very faith which 
he had as solemnly abjured to the Eutychians : to the 
same effect he wrote to the orthodox patriarch, with 
whom he had promised Theodora to hold no communion. 
His duplicity, however, did not long avail. The emperor 
falling into one of his orthodox veins, issued an edict 
condemning six propositions imputed to Origen, and 
required all the patriarchs, including the pope, to 
receive and register the imperial censure. Next he 
wanted to anathematise the Eutychians, in whose favour 
his wife was employing all her intrigues, but being 
diverted by her creatures, he fell upon some deceased 
bishops 1 who had taken part in the Eestorian contro- 
versy, and thundered out an edict against the writings 
known as the Three Chapters. 

1 Theodoras of Mopsuestia, Ibas of Edessa, and Tlieodoret of Cyprus. 



94 



THE EXARCHATE. 



The prelates how found it high time to look about them. 
The Three Chapters, if not approved, were certainly not 
censured at Chalcedon, and it was new to have an 
emperor binding what the Church had left free. The 
patriarchs remonstrated, but on being threatened with 
exile, they submitted and subscribed. Yigilius, who had 
the most reason to acquiesce, had now recovered his 
orthodoxy, and boldly headed the western bishops in a 
unanimous refusal. The incensed emperor ordered him 
to Constantinople : there being told he should never 
return to Italy till he submitted, he drew up a Judicatum 
which condemned the Three Chapters, but with a salvo 
for the full authority of the Council of Chalcedon. 
This prevarication so disgusted his own ecclesiastics that 
two deacons separated from his communion on the spot, 
and wrote home to acquaint the Church with the fall and 
apostasy of its head. The whole West rose in rebellion. 
The Illyrian bishops solemnly condemned the Judicatum, 
and the African Church excommunicated its author. 

Yigilius once more saw his error, and desirous to 
retrace his false step, he proposed the favourite remedy 
of a general council. The western bishops mostly 
declined to attend ; the pope refused to meet a 
Greek majority pledged to oppose him; and the em- 
peror, deeming himself trifled with, republished his edict 
in stronger language than before. The pope then assemb- 
ling his own bishops, declared all who should receive 
the edict to be out of the communion of the Prime 
Apostle and his see. Having launched this bolt, he fled 
to the church of St. Peter. The emperor sent the 
praetor to drag him from the sanctuary. The pope, who 
was a strong man, clung to the pillars of the altar : the 
soldiers, who were far stronger, pulled at his feet, till 
shrine, altar, and all fell together. Thereupon the popu- 
lace rose and drove the soldiers out of the church. 



DEPOSITION AND DEATH OE VIGILIUS. 



95 



The emperor then induced the pope by a solemn oath 
to return to his apartments, but he had no sooner left 
his asylum than he found himself a prisoner. Climbing 
over a wall in the night, he reached the seaside, and 
having crossed the strait in a boat, once more took 
sanctuary in the church of the celebrated martyr, St. 
Euphemia of Chalcedon. Justinian was obliged to 
revoke his edict before he could draw the pope from this 
inviolable refuge, 

Still Yigilius refused to meet a council which he 
knew was eager to vote against his opinion and 
authority. The Greeks assembling without him re- 
peated their condemnation, and Yigilius retorted by 
a Constitution affirming the entire orthodoxy of the 
inculpated Chapters. As this was contradicting his own 
Judicatuni) the emperor and his bishops lost all patience. 
The pope was arrested and sent into exile to Pro- 
conessus. His name was struck out of the diptychs, 1 
and a mandate went to Eome for a new election. 

Five months' meditation in a solitary island produced 
a fourth revolution in the religious convictions of Yigilius. 
He examined the writings with greater care, found out 
heresies which had escaped him when deliberating with 
his bishops, and purchased his restoration to imperial 
favour by signing an unqualified condemnation of the 
Three Chapters, with all their abettors, not excepting 
the (Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon. This decree was 
confirmed in the so-called Eifth General Council, then 
sitting at Constantinople (a.d. 554-5). 

Justinian now sent the humbled pontiff home, after 
seven years' captivity, loaded with favours for Italy and 
Eome ; but death overtaking him in Sicily, he was spared 

1 The diptychs contained the roll of orthodox patriarchs, living or 
dead, who were commemorated in the Church services as in the communion 
of saints. 



96 



THE EXARCHATE. 



the pain of explaining his aberrations to the rigid Catholics 
of the Apostolic see. Baronius, like a true continental, 
regards this pope's death in Sicily as a just judgment on 
his inhumanity in leaving his predecessor to expire on mi 
island! But though this writer admits him to be a 
schismatic, a simoniac, and a murderer, he assures us he 
was yet a good Catholic, and when on the completion of 
his crimes by the death of Silverius he became pope, 
he was straightway another man, for "it is the privilege 
of the Apostolic see to convert the greatest of sinners 
into saints I" 1 

These ecclesiastical dissensions greatly widened the 
breach between Eome and Constantinople. The Latins 
learned to hate the Greeks worse than the Lombards. 
Little help was received by the imperial arms, while 
much money was swept into the imperial treasury. The 
calamities of the period were aggravated by a terrible 
pestilence, which, originating between the Nile and the 
great Serbonian marsh, travelled eastward through Syria 
to Persia and India, and along the African coast to 
Europe. It raged almost without intermission, from the 
year 542 to 549, effecting a destruction of human life 
which has hardly ever been equalled. The deaths at 
Constantinople numbered ten thousand a day. In Italy 
the diminished population was unable to cultivate the 
fields, and famine followed in the train. Eome was in 
the lowest stage of depression, scourged by want, sick- 
ness and war, when the chair of St. Peter was ascended 
by a prelate, on whom the English reader at least must 
pause with respect. 

Gregory the Great was the descendant of a patrician 
house, the great grandson of Felix in., and himself a 

1 "Quos iniquos accepit, solet mox reddere sanctos." — Bar. Ann., 
an. 540 ; comp. an. 538, 553. 



GREGORY THE GREAT. 



97 



senator. Inheriting a large estate, and distinguished by 
superior abilities, he held the office (second only to the 
exarch's) of Prefect of the City. After discharging it 
for some time in great magnificence and with universal 
applause, he obtained (in his own phrase) " the grace of 
conversion," and according to the form of piety then in 
fashion, at once devoted himself to the cloister. Turning 
his patrician palace into the monastery of St. Andrew, he 
founded six other religious houses in Sicily, and then 
distributing all the rest of his patrimony among the poor, 
he retired penniless to a small apartment in the mansion 
of his fathers, to submit himself as a simple monk to the 
abbot of St. Andrew's. 

It was while in this retreat that he encountered the 
Yorkshire lads in the slave market at Eome. The story 
has been often told, but will always in England bear 
telling again. Attracted by the fair hair and blue eyes 
of the handsome Saxons, who had been kidnapped in 
the trade produced by the barbarous wars of the time, 
Gregory stopped to inquire of what nation they were. 
The reply was " Angli" " Surely they would be angeli " 
(angels), returned the monk, "if they were Christians." 
He then asked the name of their country: "Deira" 1 was 
the answer. " De ira Dei " (from the wrath of God), cried 
Gregory, " we must deliver them ! And what is your 
king's name ?" The lads answered, "Alia" "^/Muia," 
rejoined the incorrigible punster, " is the song they shall 
learn to sing." The good monk went at once to the 
pope and asked leave to go to England as a missionary. 

Obtaining the boon, he departed without a moment's 
delay, but had hardly quitted the city when he was 
overtaken and recalled. The pope had other employ- 
ment more worthy, as he thought, of Gregory's 

1 The name of the kingdom which is now the county of York. 

H 



98 



THE EXAKCHATE. 



abilities, and the monk had lost the power of obeying 
the call of God in his heart, by giving himself and his 
property to the will of another man. He was ordained 
a deacon, and sent mmcio to Constantinople to implore 
assistance against the assanlts of the Lombards. Protec- 
tion from the barbarous Arian seemed a more pressing 
necessity at Borne than the conversion of the heathen. 
The emperor, however, would neither protect nor relin- 
quish his Latin subjects ; Gregory came back without 
success, and again buried himself in his cloister. 

Before he had time to determine on another mission, 
the unanimous voice of the clergy and people called him 
to the episcopal chair. He entreated the emperor to 
withhold his approval, but the prefect, suppressing his 
letters, wrote others of an opposite nature. The monk 
fled to the woods ; the clergy followed and captured 
him. The imperial confirmation arrived, and Gregory 
was consecrated (a.d. 590). 

The first five years of his pontificate were passed in 
alleviating the miseries of Borne, affiicted by pestilence 
and famine, besieged by the Lombards, and suffering, as 
the pope often complains in his letters, more from the 
imperialist than the enemy. He instituted processional 
litanies to deprecate the Divine judgments, 1 spent the 
goods of the Church in relieving the poor, and preached 
daily, with the Lombards raging at the gates. Finding, at 
last, that nothing was to be done with the Greek emperor, 
Gregory took upon himself to conclude a separate peace 
with Agilulph for the city and territory of Borne. 

Ey thus separating the fortunes of his see from 
those of a doomed and falling empire, the pope was left 

1 The legend runs, that while reciting one of these processional chants, 
the pope saw the angel of destruction, on the top of Hadrian's sepulchre, 
sheathing his sword. The building was hence called the Castle of St. 
Angelo, and the huge bronze augel still folds his wings on the srnnmit. 



THE ENGLISH MISSION. 



99 



at liberty to return, with all the ardour of his nature, 
to the project of an English mission. He bought native 
lacls in the slave market to return them to their families 
instructed in the tidings of spiritual redemption. He 
expostulated with the French bishops on their remiss- 
ness in communicating the Gospel to their kinsmen 
across the channel. At last he despatched a little band 
from his own monastery of St. Andrew, to undertake the 
work which he had so coveted for himself. 

On reaching Provence the missionaries received such 
discouraging accounts of the people they were going to 
evangelise, that they lost heart and returned to Eome. 
The pope told them it was better not to put the hand 
to the plough than to turn back from the Lord's 
work. He sent them again with letters to the bishops 
of Aries, Aix, Yienne, and Autun : all were exhorted, 
with mingled reproaches and entreaties, to redeem the 
past and effectually promote the good cause. To the 
same effect he wrote to the governor of Provence, the 
French kings Theodore and Theodoret, and their grand- 
mother Brunechild. 

His reproaches were perhaps not better deserved 
than those which our querulous Gildas heaps on the 
British Churches for a similar neglect. It is little likely 
that any Christians ever so hated their Pagan neighbours 
as actually to refuse them the Gospel of Salvation. 1 The 
ferocity of the Saxons had probably opposed insurmount- 
able barriers to evangelical efforts : but Gregory knew 
that a great and effectual door was now opened. Ethel- 
bert king of Kent, and bretwalda (or war-king) of the 

1 Moreover it is certain that the first conversions among the Saxons in 
the north and east of England, were due to the labours of Celtic mission- 
aries from Scotland. Columban passed over from Ireland to Scotland 
(a.d. 565), and still earlier, Ninias, a British bishop, was preaching to the 
Picts. 

H 2 



100 



THE EXARCHATE. 



Saxon confederacy, had married the French princess 
Bertha, and one of the conditions of the alliance was the 
free enjoyment of her religion. She was accompanied 
to her island home by the French bishop Luithard, who 
soon had a church at Canterbury. 1 The pope was 
apprised that a spirit had appeared among the English 
which promised a good reception to the Gospel. The 
secret workings of Providence had prepared a success, 
which the leader of the mission was not a man to 
achieve from his own resources. 

Of little mind and slender acquirements, Augustine 
exhibited a spirit at once timid and arrogant. Landing 
in Thanet (a.d. 597) with his forty missionaries, he 
approached the king with the dramatic display which 
already characterised the Eoman Church. A silver 
cross and a picture of Christ were carried before 
him, while the procession chanted a Gregorian litany. 
The missionaries consisted of Eoman monks and French 
priests, whose language was then the same with the 
Saxons. 2 They began at once to declare "how the mer- 
ciful Jesus, by His own passion, redeemed this guilty 
world, and opened to believers an entrance into the 
kingdom of heaven." No other preaching but the 
preaching of the Cross ever converted a people. Augus- 
tine himself, though weak enough to lay claim to miracles 
(which Gregory never did), has left some favourable 
specimens of his preaching, 3 and we almost forgive the 
superstition which clouded the message, when we read 
that among the few books which he possessed and valued 

1 This church had been built during the Roman dominion, and was 
now dedicated to St. Martin, bishop of Tours : a plain proof that the Gallic 
Churches (which were planted from the East and not from Rome) had 
been labouring in Britain. 

2 Maimbourg's u Histoire du Pontificat de S. Gregoire," iii. 206. 

3 See Hook's " Lives of the Archbishops. 11 i. 56. 



CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH. 



101 



were a Bible in two volumes, a Testament, a Psalter, an 
exposition of the Gospels and Epistles, besides a book 
of martyrs, and some lives of the apostles. 1 The Inspired 
Word was diligently preached among the idolaters. The 
king's baptism was followed by a wide-spread nominal 
conversion, and the delighted Gregory wrote to his 
brother-pope at Alexandria, that ten thousand Angles 
were baptised on Christmas-day 5 9 7. 2 

Ethelbert's influence extended from the English 
Channel to the Humber ; from thence to the border of 
Scotland stretched the kingdom of Northumbria, whose 
king Edwin married his daughter Ethelburga. This 
princess, following her mother's example, took Paulinas 
with her, and equal success attended his preaching in 
the North. Edwin was baptised in a wooden chapel, 
erected on the site now enclosed by the walls of York 
Minster, on Easter-day 627, and the Yorkshire rivers 
were crowded with converts eager to follow his example. 3 

Gregory did not live to receive these refreshing 
ticlings. He never appears to more advantage than in 
the replies which he returned to Augustine's frivolous 
and ambitious inquiries. Eef erring him to the Epistles 
to Timothy for instructions "how to behave himself 
in the house of God," he advises him not to trouble 
himself about the differences between the Eoman and 
the Gallic liturgies, but to select from both what 
was most pious and religious, 4 to remember charity in 

1 Bede, i. 25. 2 Greg., ep. vii. 30. 

3 Nennius ascribes the conversion of Edwin and his subjects to a British 
chief, Rum, the son of Urien (sect, lxiii.). It has been conjectured that this 
is the same person, who, having been defeated and fled to Home, returned 
with the Latin name Paulinus, to evangelise his conquerors. — Raine's 
" Lives of Abps. of York," i. 17, 18. 

4 Gregory was himself the chief compiler of the present Roman mass- 
book : so groundless is the assertion that conformity to the ritual of Rome 
is in any way obligatory on other Churche-s. 



102 



THE EXARCHATE. 



all his censures, and to exclude no one from com- 
munion on the silly scruples detailed by the monk. 
" As in the Old Testament the outward works are 
observed, so in the ISTew Testament that which is 
outwardly done is not so diligently regarded as that 
which is inwardly thought : for our Lord says in 
the Gospel, ' Not that which goeth into the mouth 
defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the man, 
this defileth a man.' Almighty God declares that to be 
polluted in fact, which springs from the root of a polluted 
thought; whence also the apostle Paul says, 'Unto the 
pure all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled 
and unbelieving, nothing is pure.' " He forbids the new 
archbishop from attempting to lord it over the Gallic 
bishops, but mindless of his own text, " Thou shalt not 
move a sickle to thy neighbour's corn," he freely bestows 
on him the rule of the British Churches, over which 
no Italian ever had a shadow of just authority. 

The pope was not superior to the prejudices of his 
time and place. He put a prodigious value upon relics, 
sending about presents of little gold keys consecrated by 
filings from Peter's chains, 1 hairs of John the Baptist, 
and similar trash. He strove also to elevate his authority 
by sending the pall to other metropolitans ; for though 
granted to himself by the emperor, and notoriously a 
state decoration, 2 this vestment was already considered 

1 He presented king Childebert, son of Brunechild, -with one of these 
gold keys, telling him it would preserve him from all evil if he hung it round 
his neck. Of another, he told his correspondent, that an Arian Lombard 
had been struck dead for attempting to cut it. Possibly he believed these 
fables, but Gregory could not have thought (what he left his ignorant 
correspondent to believe) that these Peter's keys — made by his own order 
— came in some miraculous way from the apostle, and were sure passports 
to his presence, if not the very keys which opened the doors of the kingdom 
of heaven. 

2 The origin of this vestment, so famous in ecclesiastical history, was 
mean enough. The pallium was the Roman soldier's cloak, covering the 



DISSENSIONS WITH THE EAST. 



103 



a badge of spiritual jurisdiction. With all this he was a 
man of earnest and Christian spirit, and the great nation 

whole person like that of a lifeguardsman in our own day. Similar 
garments were in common use ; probably St. Paul's was such an one 
(2 Tim. iv. 13). People who despised the vanities of dress were known 
by their coarse old-fashioned cloaks, as Elijah and the Baptist by their 
garments of hair-cloth. Hence we read of the " philosopher's pall " being 
retained by the Alexandrian clergy after they became Christians. Such 
garments easily acquire peculiarities of party or sect. The monks dis- 
tinguished their orders by the colour and shape of their cloaks and hoods, 
and similar distinctions have descended to our judges, barristers, and uni- 
versity graduates. As the Roman emperors chose to take a military title, 
they naturally used the military pallium : on their shoulders it expanded into 
the rich imperial robe which has been imitated by modern sovereigns. The 
great dignitaries of the empire were permitted to copy the imperial mantle, 
as the knights companions of our modern orders are arrayed like the sovereign. 
From the State the fashion passed into the Church, where no distinctive 
attire existed during the first three centuries. Court robes naturally 
followed on the hierarchical expansion of the episcopacy ; the imperial pall 
was allowed to the chief rulers of the Church, but it was neither of silk 
nor fine linen, but of simple white woollen cloth ; — designed, the symbo- 
lists say, to represent the sheep whom the Good Shepherd bears on His 
shoulder. Hence the prelates took it off while the Gospel was read 
because the Sovereign Pastor was then ministering. The eastern 
patriarchs took their palls from the altar during the ceremony of their 
consecration : they sent the pall to the metropolitans under them on con- 
firming their election, and the metropolitans did the same to the bishops. 
The Latin Church was not so liberally decorated. It is not till the sixth 
century that we hear of the pall at all, and then as a special grant of the 
emperor. The Roman pontiff himself could not wear it till he received 
the imperial confirmation of his election ; and Gregory's letters show that 
he often applied to the emperor for leave to bestow it on other prelates. 
It appears, too, that there was a Gallican pall, which differed from the 
Roman, and was obtained by the metropolitans of Gaul without the pope's 
intervention. In the year 742 Boniface, the English apostle of the 
Germans, held a synod which required all metropolitans to apply for new 
palls at Rome ; and this resulted in the entire subjection of the western 
Church to that see. The Latin pall, it seems, was never (like the Greek) 
extended to ordinary bishops, but was the badge, first of metropolitan, and 
afterwards of papal authority. The robe has now dwindled to a mere collar, 
with slips hanging down before and behind, but it continues to be made 
of white wool, ornamented with red crosses, and is fastened over the 
pontifical robes by three gold pins. — Maimbourg's " Histoire du Pont, de 
Gregoire," iii. ; Collier's Ecc. Hist., ii. cent. vii. ; Peter de Marca (Abp. of 
Paris) de " Concord. Sac. et Imp.,*' vi. 6, 7. 



104 



THE EXARCHATE. 



which suffered so much from his successors, and now 
enjoys a blessed emancipation from their yoke, preserves 
with gratitude the memory of the warm-hearted, if 
somewhat crafty and superstitious, " Apostle of the 
English." 

Gregory was far less successful in his intercourse 
with the emperor and the eastern Church. Maurice, 
who was angry at his concluding a separate peace 
with the Lombards, formed a very unjust opinion of 
the pope's abilities. His feeling was not softened by 
Gregory's attack on the famous John the Faster, patriarch 
of Constantinople. The great eastern prelates had long 
denominated themselves " (Ecumenical patriarchs ;" they 
gave the same title to pope Leo in the Council of Chalce- 
don. The phrase was odious at Borne as asserting the 
equality of the eastern patriarchs with the successor of 
St. Peter ; but Gregory put a new and invidious construc- 
tion on the style. He contended that whoever called 
himself " Universal bishop," undermined the episcopate, 
and was to be held for an Anti- Christ. Writing so 
warmly, it would be uncharitable not to think him in 
earnest, yet it is certain both that no eastern patriarch 
ever did pretend to be either sole or supreme bishop 
of the Universal Church, and that the result of the 
contest was to transfer the disputed title to Gregory's 
successor, in the identical meaning which he 'denounced 
as Anti- Christian. The usurper Phocas repaid the 
pope's alliance, 1 by depriving his own patriarchs of the 

1 One of the darkest stains on Gregory's character is his countenancing 
this sanguinary tyrant, who waded to the throne through the blood of the 
emperor Maurice, after causing his five sons to be butchered before his 
eyes. Yet Gregory welcomed Ms accession as the salvation of the empire ! 
He was guilty of equal adulation to the infamous queen of the French, 
Brunechild. She was daughter to the Visigoth king of Spain, and married 
first to Siegebert king of Austrasia, and secondly to his nephew Meroveus. 
Having acted as regent of Austrasia in the minority of her son Childe- 



CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM BY THE PERSIANS. 



105 



appellation, and conferring it, in all its offensive signifi- 
cation, on the Eoman prelate. The grant was of little 
avail, for the patriarchs resumed their customary style 
on the death of the usurper, and after popes disdained 
to owe their pre-eminence to a secular grant. 

The fall of Phocas transferred the empire to Hera- 
clius, the gallant exarch of Africa, but his virtues could 
not avert the judgments provoked by the crimes of his 
predecessor. To revenge the murder of Maurice, 
Chosroes, the Persian king, passed the Euphrates and 
seized the chief cities of Syria. Aleppo, Antioch, 
Csesarea, Damascus, fell without resistance. The 
capture of Jerusalem followed. The Holy Sepulchre, 
the churches of Constantine and Helena, with all their 
accumulated treasures, were rifled and fired. The 
massacre of 90,000 Christians, and the loss of Egypt and 

bert II., she was suspected of poisoning him in order to retain the same 
power in the name of her infant grandsons. From the dominions of one 
of these princes she was driven, for many further crimes, to take refuge 
with the other. There she procured a bishop to be stoned for reproving 
her vices. Next she incited her grandsons to attack their cousin Clotaire, 
her own nephew by the second marriage, but they losing their lives in the 
quarrel, Clotaire reunited the French States under his sole monarchy, and 
took signal vengeance on the old queen. He accused her, before a general 
court-martial, of the death of ten kings. She was paraded through the 
camp on a camel, and then dragged by the feet at a horse's tail, till her 
head was dashed to pieces. Her body was afterwards committed to the 
flames. 

To this abandoned wretch, Gregory not only displayed the respect 
which the apostle enjoined towards a Nero, but placed what he es- 
teemed one of the highest exercises of his sacred ministry at her disposal. 
He wrote at her request to the emperor, soliciting the pall for the bishop 
of Autun, who not being a metropolitan had no claim to the distinction. 
In return, he secured her good offices for the English mission, which her 
displeasure might have arrested. It was an act of prudence to conciliate 
the savage queen, but no motive of policy could justify a Christian pastor 
in flattering a woman, whom Roman Catholic historians do not scruple to 
style Jezebel, on the possession of so many virtues, " that the French 
might be deemed the happiest of nations in living under her rule." — Greg., 
ep. ii, 8. 



106 



THE EXARCHATE. 



Asia Minor, which followed in rapid succession, excited 
less grief and indignation in Europe than the tidings 
that the True Cross had been transported into Persia. 
The exploits of six adventurous campaigns, in which 
Heraclins recovered all his losses, did not call forth snch 
devont thanksgivings as those which hailed the return of 
that treasure of superstition to the orthodox Church. 

The emperor entered Jerusalem on foot, bearing the 
prize on his shoulder, the 14th September, 629 : he 
deposited it in the great church amid the tears and 
acclamations of thousands, and the day was ever after 
observed as the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy 
Cross. 

The wood to which these semi-divine honours were 
paid, was believed to be genuine. Helena's " Invention 
of the Cross " had been greedily accepted by the 
credulity of the age, and the fragments exhibited 
did not as yet notoriously exceed the bulk of the 
original. The stains supposed to be made by that " most 
precious fountain of water and blood," the sight of which 
so powerfully affected the evangelist, might well kindle 
the deepest emotions. But the result confirmed the 
Scripture-doctrine that our walk is by faith, not by sight. 
While contemplating what they believed to be the very 
wood on which the Saviour died, Christians permitted 
the true doctrines of the Cross to disappear under the 
beggarly elements of superstition. A reverence denied 
to the Inspired Word of the crucified Eedeemer, and the 
spiritual testimony of His saints, was lavished on sense- 
less pieces of wood and bone, of which the vast majority 
were forgeries, and all utterly delusive. The honour 
really earned to the Cross by such observances was 
seen a few years later, when all was again lost to the 
Saracens, and those sturdy monotheists, nothing ques- 
tioning the authenticity of the relic, burnt the " True 



THE MOXOTHELITE HERESY. 



107 



Cross " for an idol. Still the Church was so little 
inclined to abandon the superstition, that, notwith- 
standing this notorious destruction, a new discovery was 
proclaimed by the Crusaders, and the fragments of the 
True Cross at present exhibited are computed to be 
equal to all the timber in one of our largest ships of the 
line ! 

While rivalling the Greeks in such objects of super- 
stition, the Latin Church stoutly maintained the doctrinal 
war against them. The gallant Heraclius, unable to 
escape the theological infection of the purple, brought 
out an exposition of the faith, designed to reconcile all 
parties, but which, like most attempts at comprehension, 
only added to the schism and confusion of the times. 
As if the Honophysite controversy were not enough 
to poison the wells of evangelical faith, the Greeks 
found a new crux, in the question whether the two 
Natures in our blessed Lord implied also the possession 
of two Wills, one as God, and another as Man ? The 
solution was involved in a cloud of ambiguity, inasmuch 
as two wills seem to imply contrariety, 1 and the agree- 
ment of two persons is expressed by saying that they 
have but one will. On the other hand, if Christ had no 
true human will, He would no longer be a true Man, 
the Mediator and Example of Adam's race. The " one- 
will " (Monothelite) doctrine proved to be the one-nature 
(Monophysite) heresy over again : in fact, it was started 
by a professed Eutychian. Heraclius, persuaded, like 
Justinian, that he could steer between these theological 
rocks, embraced the new heresy, and his patriarch 
Sergius not only sanctioned it, but falsely inserted it 
among the Acts of the Fifth General Council. 

The Eoman prelate Honorius, falling into the snare, 
accepted the doctrine, but at the same time very properly 

1 See Gal. v. 17. 



108 



THE EXARCHATE. 



denounced the discussion as frivolous and full of 
mischief. The emperor so far complied with his wish as 
to issue an " Exposition" (JEcthesis), forbidding further 
dispute, but as the edict ended with anathematising 
those who should refuse the one-will definition, the 
strife waxed hotter than before. The see of Eome was 
kept vacant after the death of Honorius 1 for a year 
and a half, because the pope elect refused to receive 
the Exposition, and the exarch took advantage of the 
vacancy to enter the Lateran, and plunder it of all the 
Church treasures. J ohn iv. condemned the imperial edict 
in a council at Eome, thereby, as the angry emperor 
declared, condemning the Apostolic see itself since 
Honorius had approved it. The pope replied (not 
without reason) that his predecessor had agreed with 
Sergius in condemning the doctrine of two contrary 
wills : but that a Divine and a human will unalterably 
agreed, was a proposition never submitted to his notice. 

The miserable quarrel could not die with its 
authors. Hundreds of angry ecclesiastics continued 
thundering out censures without an idea of their 
opponents' meaning, or perhaps their own. The 
emperor Constans issued an edict called the " Type," 
commanding silence; but no one was silent. Pope 
Theodore excommunicated two patriarchs. The patri- 
arch retaliated by pulling down the altar in the Latin 
residency, and causing the papal servants to be scourged. 
Pope Martin condemned the Type as wicked and in 
every respect impious. He even sent a circular letter 
into the East, declaring the patriarchs of Antioch and 

1 Though this pope was finally decided to be a heretic, he may be 
thanked for enlarging the English mission by sending the pall to Paulinus 
of York (a.d. 634). Honorius is further famed for transferring the gilt 
copper covering from the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus to the roof of St. 
Peter's Church. Was the idol also transferred at the same time ? 



MARTYRDOM OF POPE MARTIN. 



109 



Jerusalem heretics, and appointing a Vicar-General to 
administer their forfeited trusts. 

This spiritual aggression was aggravated by some 
political negotiations with the French, to whom the 
Latins were already turning their eyes for relief. The 
enraged emperor ordered his exarch to seize the pope 
and send him prisoner to Constantinople. The officer 
haying carried off his prisoner by night, to avoid a 
popular insurrection, landed him in Naxor, where he 
was kept a year before he reached Constantinople. 
After lying three months in a dungeon, Martin was 
brought to trial for high treason. He was carried to 
the tribunal in a chair, being unable to stand for the 
gout, but the presiding judge ordered him to be held up 
on his feet by force. He was accused of abetting 
Olympius, a late exarch, in an intended revolt which 
death had prevented from taking effect. There was never 
any doubt of the pope's innocence. It was the emperor's 
book, not his sceptre, that Martin had insulted. Never- 
theless, he was found guilty and sentenced to be cut to 
pieces. The guards stripped him of all his garments : he 
was dragged in chains through the city, with an execu- 
tioner carrying a drawn sword before him, and then cast 
into a dungeon with such inhumanity that he must have 
died, but for the secret succour of two compassionate 
women. 

The day before the intended execution, the emperor 
going to visit the patriarch on his death-bed, found him 
bewailing the cruelties inflicted on his brother-bishop. 
He besought the despot to relent, alleging that he 
himself would have to answer for the injustice at the 
tribunal to which he was going. Constans listened, and 
countermanded the execution. The pope was trans- 
ported to the Crimea, and there, after appealing piteously 
for the necessaries of life to the clergy at Borne, who 



110 



THE EXARCHATE. 



had once offered to die with him, the poor man expired, 
neglected and destitute, a.d. 655. He is honoured as 
a martyr, yet, when we remember that the Type did 
but enjoin silence, on a question which could receive 
no treatment so advantageous, our sympathy for the 
sufferer undergoes a chill, without in the least abating 
our horror at his persecutors. 

Two things are apparent in these transactions: first, 
that the emperor enjoyed equal authority oyer Church 
and State at Eome, down to the close of the seventh 
century ; and secondly, that power so exercised would not 
long be tolerated in either. In every age, theories, 
whether of religion or loyalty, are tempered by a 
convenient though often unconscious expediency. Men 
do not long submit to an authority which is seen to be 
incompatible with the public welfare. What retards the 
march of improvement is the self-deception which so 
often hides the path to freedom and happiness : for this 
the truest remedy is the circulation of the Holy Scrip- 
tures, and the power of the Holy Spirit enlightening 
and sanctifying the heart. 

Eight years after the death of Martin, Constans 
came into Italy, at the head of a large body of troops, 
to prosecute the war against the Lombards; but after 
suffering three defeats, he was glad to retreat into Sicily, 
where he continued till his death. The murder of his 
brother, with other crimes committed at Constantinople, 
had filled his guilty conscience with a horrible dread 
of that place. He even attempted to remove the seat 
of government back to Eome, but the populace of 
Constantinople prevented the embarkation of his family 
by force. The emperor was received by the pope and 
clergy, six miles from the city, and conducted in pro- 
cession to St. Peter's. He stayed but five days, which 
were occupied in stripping the public buildings and 



THEODORE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. Ill 

churches of their most valuable monuments. Eetiring 
with his plunder to Syracuse, he left a name as odious 
in Old Borne as in the ]N"ew. 

In the year 668, Wighard archbishop elect of 
Canterbury, haying come to Eome for consecration, 
died of the plague, and the pope appointed Theodore 
in his place. The new prelate was a Greek monk, 
born like St. Paul at Tarsus in Cilicia, and further 
resembling that apostle in having shorn his head in 
sign of a vow. The latter circumstance was a sore 
trouble to the pope, not from the Judaical but the 
schismatical character of the tonsure. Theodore had 
shaved his head all over, leaving only a fringe of hair 
at the back. This was the Greek fashion, and was 
called the tonsure of St. Paul. The Eoman fashion, 
called the tonsure of St. Peter, required the fringe 
of hair to encircle the head like a crown, and was 
termed the coronal tonsure. 1 Now the British Churches 
being of eastern origin, had adopted the Greek tonsure, 
while the new Eoman missionaries were obstinate for 
the Latin. It would never do to let the archbishop 
of Canterbury look like a Briton, and as wigs were not 
yet in fashion, the only remedy was to keep him at 
Eome till the hair was grown, and shave him anew as 
a disciple of St. Peter. Happily the hair did not refuse 
to sprout, though the archbishop was above sixty-five 
years of age, and with his Eoman tonsure and a Eoman 
chaplain to keep him in order, this Greek prelate was 
sent to rule our English Church. 

He proved the most zealous and active archbishop 
yet seen in the country. By his exertions the Church 
was organised on the Eoman plan throughout the island. 
The South Saxons inhabiting Sussex and Surrey (the 



1 Some have fancied* in this circle a resemblance to the crown of thorns. 



112 



THE EXARCHATE. 



only Pagan state remaining) were converted by the 
preaching of Wilfrid, and the king of Northnmbria 
having yielded the ancient right of York, Theodore 
reigned sole archbishop in England for twenty-two 
years. Cherishing, like other proselytes, a special 
detestation of the nsages which he had deserted, he 
never ceased his endeavours to reduce the British 
Churches to conformity with Borne. 

The pope, however, was as yet far from being 
absolute, even in Italy. Maurus bishop of Bavenna 
flatly refused to obey his citation ; and when Yitalian 
thundered out his excommunication, excommunicated 
the pope in return. The latter pronounced the offender 
deprived and reduced to a layman, but the exarch 
maintained him in his see, where with all his clergy, 
he and his successor bade absolute defiance to Borne. 
They even obtained an imperial rescript exempting 
Bavenna from subjection to the pope. Nor was 
the new province of England less resolute. Shortly 
after, Wilfrid appealing to the pope against the sentence 
of Theodore, who deprived him of the see of York, 
was restored in full synod. But on his return, the 
king of Northumbria, by the archbishop's advice, sent 
him to prison, and only released him on condition of 
his quitting the kingdom. 1 

The emperor Constans was assassinated in Sicily, 
after a reign of twenty-seven years, a.d. 668. His son 
Constantine succeeded in recovering Sicily from the 

1 Theodore being afterwards reconciled to Wilfrid, induced the next 
king to restore him to his see, but he was again deprived by a council under 
Bertwald archbishop of Canterbury, at which king Aldfrith was present 
(a.d. 702). Again he appealed to Rome, and the archbishop pronounced 
the appeal an ample justification of the sentence. Again, too, the pope 
absolved him in a council of bishops, and again the king refused to allow 
the decision of his own synod to be overruled by the so-called " Apostolic 



THE POPE DECREED A HERETIC. 



113 



usurper, and having made peace with the Saracens, 
called the Sixth General Council at Constantinople, a.d. 
680. The One- will heresy was here finally condemned, 
and Sergius of Constantinople, with Honorius of Borne, 
and others, were struck out of the diptych as heretics. 
The decree was passed at the instance of the Eoman 
legates, who showed no desire to claim for their see, 
any more than others, the infallibility now supposed to 
attach to the chair of St. Peter. 1 This council was the 
most unanimous of any ; the single dissentient being 
the patriarch of Antioch, who was deprived and expelled 
on the spot : and its decrees were received by all but 
the Monophysites, both in the East and "West. On this 
occasion the emperor settled the question of titles by 
styling the Eoman pontiff " Universal Pope," and his 
rival at Constantinople " Universal Patriarch." 

At this time it appears there were three distinct 
parties to the election of a pope of Eome — the Clergy, 
the Citizens, and the Army. The usual course was for 
the clergy to assemble first and agree upon a candidate, 
who was then proposed to the acceptance of the people 
and soldiery. If the clergy could not agree, one of the 
other bodies assumed the initiative ; sometimes they did 
not wait for the clergy. The election being made, it 

se3." Aldfrith relented on his death-bed, and the archbishop, by his 
desire, proposed the restoration of Wilfrid in a council called by himself as 
regent of the kingdom. Still it was warmly opposed by the bishops : they 
denied the pope's power to revoke the decree of an English synod, 
and the matter was compromised by placing J ohn of Beverley in the see of 
York, and permitting Wilfrid to occupy the see of Hagulstad (or Hexham) 
so vacated.— Edd. in Vit. Wilfrid, c. 56, 57 ; Bed., v. 3, 20. 

1 To save the new doctrine, Baronius affirms that the name of Honorius 
has been falsely inserted in the Acts : but the assertion is unsupported by 
any authority, and was no doubt an invention of the cardinal's own. The 
Eoman legates brought home a copy of the Acts, and Leo II., in acknow- 
ledging their receipt to the emperor, accepts and repeats the censures 
expressly naming Honorius. — Baron., ad an. 633. 

I 



114 



THE EXARCHATE. 



was certified by all three parties to the exarch at 
Kaveima, who was empowered to add the imperial con- 
firmation. When the electors differed and made donble 
returns , the exarch settled the dispute ia his own 
fashion, by admitting the candidate most useful to the 
emperor or himself. 1 

The emperor's authority daily growing less in Italy, 
Eome was again virtually a republic. The exarch was 
known only as a receiver of tribute. The city made its 
own terms with the Lombards, and managed its domestic 
affairs by its own magistracy. The pope was naturally 
at the head of the senate, and any gratitude for imperial 
favours was repressed by the inveterate feud with the 
rival see of Constantinople. The despotic policy of 
compelling agreement by force of arms was no longer 
effective. When Justinian n. sent his sword-bearer to 
arrest pope Sergius and bring him prisoner to Constan- 
tinople, for rejecting the canons of the Quinisextine 
Council 2 (a.d. 691), the Romans showed such a menacing 
aspect, that the trembling official hid himself under the 
pope's bed, and was glad to escape with his life. 

The exarch was equally unsuccessful in attempting 
to exclude pope John vi., elected 701, and again it was 
his own soldiers who resisted the emperor's orders. The 

1 The exarch, was not unfrequently bribed by the candidate or his 
friends. 

2 So called from being intended to supplement the Fifth and Sixth 
General Councils, neither of which passed any canons of discipline. It 
was also called the Council in T rullo, from the name of the apartment of 
the palace of Constantinople in which it assembled. This council (Can. ii.) 
adopted the eighty-five " Apostolical canons," which pope Gelasius had 
pronounced apocryphal. It condemned the Roman canon, which required 
married clergymen to separate from their wives (Can. xiii.), and prohi- 
bited the Roman practice of fasting on the Saturdays in Lent (Can. lv.). 
These and some other matters, on which the assembled prelates assumed 
superiority over the chair of St. Peter, so offended the pope that he 
rejected the council altogether. 



boniface's mission to the geemans. 115 

pope was the real commander of the army. His power 
was sustained by the profits accruing to the clergy and 
city from the increasing pilgrimages to Eome. The 
visits of the metropolitans to fetch their palls, with the 
appeals now made to the pope, brought travellers of 
every rank to visit the city. Ceadwalla and Ina, kings 
of the West Saxons, Coenred of Mercia, Offa, a prince 
of Essex, followed rapidly in the steps of Wilfrid, and 
all embraced the monastic life at Eome. When pope 
Constantino went to Constantinople to discuss the 
Quinisextine canons with the second Justinian, he met 
with a very different reception from that which the first 
gave to his predecessor in the matter of the Three 
Chapters. The emperor kissed the pope's feet, implored 
his intercession, and confirmed every privilege granted 
to his see. The pope in return vouchsafed to accept such 
of the canons in Triillo as did not interfere with Eoman 
customs. 

Shortly after, the citizens of Eome refused to admit 
the emperor's image, because he was a heretic. His 
name was omitted from the liturgy, and his viceroy had 
to fight his way into the city. 

About the same time, the papal power received 
enormous augmentation from the conversion of the 
Germans. Winfrid a monk of Crediton, in Devonshire, 
came to Eome in the year 721, to report the result of a 
brief preaching in Friesland. Gregory n. constituted 
him his legate to the German nations, ordaining him a 
bishop, and changing his name to Boniface, as if to 
obliterate his national connection with the objects of his 
labours. He took an oath at the tomb of the apostle, 
"to the blessed St. Peter and his vicar Gregory, to 
consult, in all things, the interests of their Church, and 
to communicate with none that acted contrary to its 
canons." With a book of thes^ canons, and a plentiful 

i 2 



116 



THE EXARCHATE. 



supply of relics, the second Gregory sent forth the 
apostle of the Germans. "We look in vain for the 
Bible and the Gospels, which the first Gregory put into 
the hand of Augustine. 

The Germans, however, were weary of the Pagan 
deities, and perhaps the easier to be converted from 
finding not a little Paganism in the religion proposed to 
their acceptance. Boniface had great success. In less 
than twenty years he wrote that the Synod of Mentz had 
decreed the Apostolic see to be the centre of Christian 
communion, and ordered the metropolitans both of 
France and Germany to seek their palls at Koine. 1 

The last shadow of Greek empire perished in Borne 
during the great controversy upon image worship, 
initiated by Leo the Isaurian, who ascended the throne 
a.d. 717. This prince was the first to give expression to 
the horror, which must have filled all enlightened Chris- 
tians, at the rank idolatry openly practised in the Church. 
He beheld pictures and statues not only placed in the 
sanctuaries, but, in direct violation of the second com- 
mandment, bowed down to and worshiped. The practice 
was new, and had never been authoritatively sanctioned, 2 
but on consulting the patriarch, the emperor was told it 
would be dangerous to interfere. The gifts made to 

1 Bon., ep. cv. 

2 The subject of images was not mentioned at either of the Six General 
Councils, nor at any other synod upon record except the Spanish Council 
of Eliberis (a.d. 305), when the introduction of pictures into churches 
was forbidden, lest " that which is worshiped be painted upon walls." 
They were admitted into some churches as ornaments about the end of the 
fourth century. Paulinus, bishop of Nola, in Italy, having built a new 
church, embellished it with pictures of martyrs and Scriptural incidents for 
the instruction of the people. He acknowledges the practice to be unusual 
(Paulin. Natal., ix.). His own picture was placed in another church with 
one of Martin of Toms, and an epigram was written under, representing 
the one as an example to saints, the other to sinners (Paul. Epig., xii.). St. 
Augustine complains of the practice of seeking Christ and His apostles on 
painted walls, instead of the Holy Scriptures (De Cons. Evang., i. 20), he 



> 



THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 



117 



images brought wealth to the churches; hence they 
were everywhere exalted by monks and miracle- 
mongers. Nevertheless, Leo having called a council 
both of the clergy and senate, issued an edict forbidding 
any kind of worship to be henceforth given to images 
(a.d. 726). They were not at once expelled from the 
churches, but only ordered to be raised above the reach 
of the worshipers. It was not till these precautions 
had failed that a second order was issued to remove 
and break the idols. 

The execution of this order occasioned serious riots 
in Constantinople, where the monks were numerous, and 
the populace always ready for sedition. The excite- 
ment extending to the provinces, the troops were re- 
quired, and much blood was spilled. The patriarch 
remonstrated, but the emperor adhering to his orders, 
further commanded the edict to be published and 
observed in Italy. Gregory n. immediately headed the 
opposition. Though nothing was more notoriously 
untrue, he declared that image worship had been ever 
sanctioned in the Church. The people rose in rebellion 
at Eavenna, blood was shed, and the Lombard king, 
marching to the cause of the images, entered Eavenna 
without opposition a.d. 725. 

reproaches the Manichees with their fondness for images (Cont. Ada- 
mant., xiii.). The practice, however, became almost universal in the fifth 
century, growing not unnaturally as the study of the Scriptures declined. 
The Virgin Mary, the apostles, and the martyrs, were painted on the 
walls ; still no statues were allowed of wood, stone, or metal. Paintings 
were not thought "graven images," nor were they as yet worshiped. 
Of Christ, only the type of a lamb was allowed to be painted ; the human 
form was deemed improper for one who is God and Man. This continued 
till the Quinisextine Council, when the pictures beginning to be 
worshiped, it was thought more decent to adore a man's form than a 
beast's. This was one of the canons that Roine refused to accept. 
Gregory the Great terms pictures the books of the ignorant, but declares 
that nothing made with hands is to be worshiped, and this was the 
received doctrine of the Church, down to the Quinisext Council. 



118 



THE EXARCHATE. 



The pope, with the aid of the Venetians, rescued 
Rome from the hands of the invader, and in that hour 
the emperor ceased to reign in Italy. When he 
threatened to break the image of St. Peter himself, and 
drag his successor in chains to Constantinople, the 
pontiff replied, that four-and-twenty furlongs would 
place him beyond the imperial dominion ; but even 
that was unnecessary. He excommunicated the exarch, 
and called a council which menaced the emperor himself 
with the Church's anathema. 1 The populace pulled 
clown his statues and renounced his obedience as an 
enemy of the faith. The duchy of Rome took the oath 
of allegiance to the pope. " All the nations of the West 
(he wrote) have their eyes turned to our humble person, 
they regard me as a God upon earth." 

The emperor could only retort by transferring Cala- 
bria and Sicily, which remained to him together with the 
lilyrian dioceses, to the patriarchate of Constantinople. 
The pope felt the blow, and condescended to temporise, 
but in a few years the Lombard king Astulplms burst 
again into Ravenna, and driving the imperialists to 
their ships, put an end to the exarchate a.d. 753. The 
Greek was for ever driven from the Seven-hilled City, 
and it remained with the pope to determine its future 
government. 

1 Baronius (ad an. 730) says the excommunication was actually 
pronounced. 



> 



CONTEMPORARY SUCCESSIONS ( CARLO YINGIAN DYNASTY). 



751 
752 
756 
757 
768 
772 

774 
775 

780 

795 
797 
800 
802 
811 
813 
814 
816 
817 
820 
824 
827 

829 
840 
842 
844 
847 

H 9 

855 
858 
866 
867 
872 
875 
880 
882 
884 



Popes of Rome. 



Leo m. 

Constantine 
Porphyrogenitus 

Irene. 

Nicephorus. 
Michael I. 
Leo iv. 



Michael II. 

Theophihis. 
Michael m. 



Basil. 



Stephen n. 1 
Stephen ill. 

Paul i. 
Stephen iv. 
Adrian I.... 



Leo hi. 



Stephen v. 
Paschal i. 

Eugenius n. 
Valentine. 
Gregory iv. 



Sergius ii. 
Leo iv. 
Benedict ill. 
Nicholas i. 

Adrian II. 
John Viii 



Martin n. 
Adrian m. 



Kings of 
Lombardy. 



Didier, 



Didier, de- 
throned. 



Kings of the Franks. 



Pepin. 



Charlemagne. 



Charlemagne, Emperor. 




Louis le Debonnaire. 




Italy. 


Germany. 


France. 


Lothaire. 


Louis. 


Charles the 
[Bald. 


Louis II. 






[Bald. 
Charles the 






Charles the Fat, dethroned and died, 888. 



1 Hav-'ng died before ordination, he is omitted in early catalogues, and his successor styled 
Stephe i ii. 



> 



CHAPTEE V. 

THE CARLOVING-IAN EMPIRE. 

Rise of the Franks — Clovis — Pepin — Charles Martel — Deposition of 
Childebert — Fall of Lombard Kingdom — Patrimony of St. Peter — 
Cardinals of Rome — Charlemagne — Renewal of the Image Con- 
troversy — Councils of Verulam and Frankfort — Adrian — Leo III. — 
Translation of the Empire — Dominions — Two-headed Eagle — Union 
of Chnrch and State — Martial Proselytism — Canonisation of Charle- 
magne — Separation of Germany, France, and Italy — Schism of the 
East and West. 

The fall of Eayenna left the Lombards masters of Italy 
from tlie Alps to the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. 
Astnlphns possessed an unbounded veneration for the 
Holy see. Eome was the natural capital of his 
dominions, but he would reign there as protector of 
the Church, and invest the pope with more than 
imperial primacy. Eome, however, little valued the 
expulsion of the Greeks if the Lombards were to 
occupy their place. The pope disdained the primacy 
of a barbarian empire, and preferred a more distant 
defender of the faith. His eyes were already turned 
to the country which has so often interposed itself 
between the capital and the princes of Italy. 

The Franks were the first-fruits of the barbarians to 
the Latin Church. Their kingdom stretched from the 
Ehine to the Somme, when Meroveus, son of the long- 
haired 1 Clodion, and grandson of Pharamond, was a 



1 Long hair was the distinction of princes among these barbarians, as 
among the ancient Egyptians. 



122 



THE CARLOYINGIAN EMPIRE. 



guest at the court of Yalentinian in. Oppressed by 
the Visigoths, the Merovingian dynasty retired into 
exile, but reappeared on the death of Euric, when the 
youthful Clovis re-united the Franks, overthrew the 
Goths and Alemans, and established the French 
monarchy throughout Gaul. While yet a Pagan, Clovis 
was married to Clotilda, a Burgundian princess of the 
Catholic faith. Her influence, backed by an unlooked- 
for success in the crisis of battle, determined him to 
embrace her religion. He was baptised with three 
thousand of his followers on Christmas-day 406, and the 
example was followed by the entire nation. 1 

So important a conversion was hailed with transports 
by the Latin Church. Clovis was her u Eldest Son," and 
the only Catholic king ; for the emperor, as well as the 
other sovereigns of the West, were involved in heresy. 
The emperor Anastasius sent to him a purple mantle 
and a crown (still exhibited at Eome) with the titles of 

1 Ranke justly observes that many Catholics must have been numbered 
among the subjects of the Arian princes, who secretly aided the Franks. 
He suggests that the miracles related in the history of Clovis, " how St. 
Martin sent a hind to show him the ford through the Vienne, and 
St. Hilary went before him in a pillar of fire," were but types of the 
succours which the natives afforded to their fellow-believers." — u Lives of 
Popes," i. 15. 

The baptism of Clovis was performed by Rcmigius, or St. Remy of 
Rheims, amid a crowd of pretended miracles, the fame of which descended 
With the French crown to the end of the monarchy. The coronations were 
always at Rheims, and the ampulla or golden vial of oil used in the ceremony 
was said to have been brought down by a dove out of heaven for the 
baptism of Clovis. On the same occasion an angel supplied the royal 
shield, seme with fleurs de Us, and the orifiammc, a flame-coloured 
banner attached by green cords to a gilt lance. This standard was kept 
with the royal treasures in the abbey of St. Denis, and borne by the 
defender of the abbey before the king in the field. After the conquest of 
France by our Henry v., the oriflamme was supplanted by the white flag 
which continued to our own day. To Clovis also is ascribed the gift of 
healing the king's-evii, long supposed to be inherited by the rightful kings 
of France.— Morery's Diet. 



THE FRANK KINGDOM. 



123 



Consul and Augustus ; even Justinian was content to 
acknowledge the French sovereignty over the provinces 
beyond the Alps. 

Clovis — or as the name is also written, Clodovix, 
Ludovin, and Louis — died at Paris, after a reign of 
thirty years, a.d. 511. The French realm, though 
divided among his descendants, continued so powerful 
that Gregory the Great speaks of it as exceeding 
other monarchies as much as a monarch exceeds a 
private man. Its kings have always asserted pre- 
cedence in Europe next to the pope and the emperor. 
The Merovingian line, however, quickly degenerated 
from the valour and policy of their great ancestor. 
Dagobert, the sixth from Clovis, was the last who really 
exercised the royal power. Pepin, governor or duke of 
Australia, 1 rose in arms against Dagobert' s successor, 
and though nominally resuming his allegiance he re- 
tained all the power of the kingdom in his own hands 
with the hereditary office of Mayor of the Palace. 

His son Charles Martel was the greatest warrior 
of his age, and to his prowess Europe is still indebted 
for her freedom and religion. The Saracens, after 
overrunning Egypt, Syria, and Persia, like the locusts 
of the Apocalypse, 2 descended on the coast of Africa, 
and thence passing into Spain and Portugal, drove 
the Christians into the mountains of Asturia. Their 
conquests extended into France as far as the Loire, 
and they were meditating the subjugation of Europe, 
when arrested by Charles Martel at Poitiers (732). 

1 A district between the "Rhine and the Meuse, which was at different 
times a separate kingdom under one of the Merovingian princes. 

2 Rev. ix. 3-11. Mr. Elliott (Hor. Ap., i. 410) gives an engraving of 
the symbolical locust, designed to exemplify the " horses," the yellow 
turbans (" crowns like gold"), the bearded faces (" as the faces of men "), 
the long hair ("as the hair of women"), and the "breast-plates," by 
which the Saracens were distinguished. 



124 



THE CAKLOVINGIAN EMPIRE. 



After seven days of incessant conflict, the Saracen host 
disappeared tinder the iron blows of the Franks. 1 The 
Moslem leader was slain, and the remains of his army 
broke np and fled. The victory was complete and final. 
The Arabs retired beyond the Pyrenees, and never 
again attempted the conquest of France. 

The same year witnessed the death of pope Gre- 
gory ii., and the elevation of the third of that name. 
The Eoman see was then in the heat of its conflict with 
the iconoclast emperor. A council at Eome pronounced 
excommunicate all who should pull down, profane, or 
blaspheme the sacred images of our Lord and His im- 
maculate mother, of the holy apostles and other saints. 2 
"New images were zealously erected in all the churches, 
and the pope, now in open rebellion, rejoiced in the 
loss of the Greek fleet, sent for his subjugation. When 
the Lombard triumphs threatened him with a more 
formidable yoke, he had recourse to Charles Martel, 
offering to renounce the imperial allegiance, and place 
the Eoman territory under the great leader's protection 
as consul. The death of Charles arrested the treaty, 
but his son Pepin obtained a more substantial succour 
from Eome, He persuaded the Franks to inquire of 
pope Zachary whether the kingdom belonged to the 
Merovingian prince who wore the crown, or the master 
of the palace, who exercised the power ? Zachary, of 
course, replied to Pepin's satisfaction; king Childe- 
bert was sent to a cloister, and his minister ascended 
the throne (a.d. 752). This consummation of a foregone 
conclusion was quoted at a later period as undeniable 
evidence of the power of the Apostolic see to depose and 
create kings. 

This was the monarch on whom pope Stephen now 



1 Martel signifies a hammer, 



2 Cotic, torn. v\ 1458, 



THE PATRIMONY OF ST. PETER. 



125 



threw himself for protection against the Lombards. He 
anointed him and his two sons u Patricians " of Borne, 
while Pepin undertook in return to make oyer the 
dominions of the exarchate to the Holy see. To give a 
better colour to the transaction, the fable was invented 
that Constantine had given Eome to Sylvester as a 
baptismal fee. Pepin crossed the Alps, and after 
defeating the Lombards with great slaughter, captured 
Pavia, and obliged Astulphus to recognise the pope's 
pretensions. On a second summons from the apostle, 1 
the French returned, and having possessed themselves 
of the whole exarchate, Pepin conveyed it to the 
Holy see under the designation of u St. Peter's Patri- 
mony." 

By this donation, the fruit of a double rapine — for the 
emperor was still the legitimate sovereign— the pope 
became a temporal prince. But neither the sanctity nor 
the safety of the mitre was promoted by encircling it 
with a coronet. The neighbouring chiefs were guilty of 
so much violence at the elections, that a canon was 
passed (a.d. 769), prohibiting the presence of strangers 
and armed parties, and further limiting the succession to 
the cardinal priests and deacons of Eome. This title, 
which has since been elevated to princely dignity, was 
then applied, as the word denotes, to the principal parish 
clergy, 2 but it is disputed whether it belonged to the 

1 The pope dated his letter from the tomb of the apostle, and opened 
it with the address, " Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, 
to the three most excellent kings, Pepin, Charles, and Carloman. I am 
the apostle Peter, to whom it was said, ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock 
I will build my Church.' " Further on, the apostle is made to say, " If you 
care to be cleansed from your sins, and to earn an eternal reward, hasten 
to the relief of my city, my Church, and the people committed to my care." 
The Lombards, though quite as good Catholics as the French, are styled 
" The wicked and merciless enemies of all three." — Bower, iii. 373, 4. 

2 The word is derived from cardo, a hinge ; whence the " cardinal 
virtues," " cardinal points," &c. 



126 



THE CARLO VINGIAN EMPIRE. 



chief of each order, like arehpriests and archdeacons, or 
to the clergy of the principal churches, which had the 
privilege of administering the sacraments. It was not 
peculiar to Borne till limited to that city by a bull of 
Paul m. (a.d. 1543). 1 

The Lombards still proving intractable, the pope 
again invoked the French, and at last Charles, entered 
Italy with all his forces, and having taken Desiderius 
prisoner, put a final end to the Lombard dynasty 
(a.d. 774). 

Charlemagne, who of the many styled u great " alone 
enjoys the distinction of incorporating the epithet with 
his proper name, transferred the Lombard kingdom to 
himself, and having received the iron crown from the 
archbishop of Milan in the cathedral of Monza, hastened 
to put the pope in possession of his father's donation. 
The duchy of Spoleto was added, either in right of 
conquest or by the voluntary submission of the duke. 
The Lombard dukes of Friuli and Benevento rendered 
similar homage. Naples, with the island of Sicily, still 
kept their allegiance to the imperial sceptre ; the 
Yenetians maintained their independence, and the rest 
of Italy fell to the French king. 

The papal writers boast of many splendid additions 
to the temporal states of the Church granted by Charle- 
magne. Pope Adrian produced the fictitious grant of 
Constantine, 2 and reminded the most Christian king of 
several others (besides the donation of king Pepin) 
which had been made by divers emperors, in Tuscany, 
Spoleto, Benevento, Corsica, and Pavia. All these, with 

1 The red hat was granted by Innocent IV. (a.d. 1244), and the title of 
" Eminence," by Urban vm. (a.d. 1623).— Bower, iv. 22. The title of 
cardinal is still borne by two of the minor canons of St. Paul's, London. 

2 Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., cent. viii. 2. Hence the legend of Constan- 
tino's grant was not forged, as is often supposed, in the tenth century, but 
was current as early as the eighth. 



RENEWAL OF THE IMAGE CONTROVERSY. 127 



new gifts of his own, Charlemagne is supposed to have 
now confirmed to St. Peter : but the true extent 
of these grants is obscured by the fictions with which 
papal forgeries have enveloped the whole subject. 
The important point is that, whatever the territories, 
they were held by the pope as a feudal principality 
under the suzerainty -in- chief of the king, like the 
principalities of the German empire clown to recent 
times. It was the policy of Charlemagne to endow the 
Church with tenures of this description, supposing that 
his clerical vassals would be more trustworthy than secular 
counts and barons. Thenceforward bishops and abbots 
were seen heading their troops in the field at the 
summons of their liege lord, and the scandal ensued of 
placing youths and infants in ecclesiastical dignities for 
the sake of their temporal possessions. The Italian 
dukes, however, proved troublesome neighbours, and 
the French king was wearied by repeated appeals for 
assistance. 

The original ground of separation from the empire 
was taken away by the Second Council of Mcsea 
(a.d. 787), which restored the worship of images to as 
ample an extent as the pope himself could desire : their 
opponents were declared worse than Jews, Pagans, or 
Mohammedans. These decrees were confirmed by the 
empress Irene, and fondly supposing that she had 
thereby reconciled the Latin Church, she sent an army 
the next year to drive the Franks out of Italy. 

Charlemagne not only repelled this invasion, but 
set himself with great vigour to confute the Greek 
idolatry. In the four " Caroline Books," written 
by the assistance of his librarian, Alcuin of York, 
the king denounced the late council as a false synod 
of the Greeks, and their doctrine as repugnant to the 
Scriptures, the fathers, and the tradition of the whole 



128 



THE CAELO VIDIAN E3HPIEE. 



Church. While condemning the destruction of sacred 
images, and defending their use as books to the 
unlearned, he strenuously repudiates all manner of 
worship. This was the doctrine of pope Gregory the 
Great, and though experience had proved it to be 
impracticable, the English prelates repeated it at the 
Council of Verulam (a.d. 793). Alcuin then wrote to 
Charlemagne in the name of the bishops and princes of 
England, refuting image worship from the testimony of 
Holy Scripture, and denouncing it as a thing " which 
the Church of God utterly abhors." 1 

The Church of England enjoyed at this time a 
high reputation for learning, and fortified by its 
authority, the king convened a council at Frankfort 
(a.d. 794), which was attended by a large number 
of bishops from England, France, Germany, and 
Italy, including the pope's legates. Alcuin was 
again present, the Caroline Books were declared 
irrefragable, and all worship, adoration, and service 
of images was condemned as execrable in the Church 
of God. 2 

Charlemagne had good reason to maintain the 
religious no less than the political separation of the 
West; but it was an unpleasant position for jDope 
Adrian, who had taken an active part in promoting the 
rejected council. He had accepted its canons, and 
transmitted them to the French king in expectation of 
his ready acquiescence, and this contumelious rejection, 
in the presence of his own legates, was a rude shock to 
his spiritual authority. The pope, however, had no idea 
of restoring his dominions to the emperor, nor conse- 
quently of breaking with the only power that could 

1 Howell's Synopsis Cone. Brit,, p. 22, Sim. Dun., ad an. 792. 

2 Cone., torn. vii. 103. 



CORONATION OF CHARLES. 



129 



defend them. While venturing to write against the 
Caroline Books, he preserved a tone of the utmost 
respect to the royal author. He was willing enough to 
pronounce the Greek emperor a heretic for retaining the 
Church's patrimony in Sicily. But Charlemagne was 
inflexible. He wept at the pope's death, as for a 
brother, and composed a tender, if not elegant, epitaph 
in Latin elegiacs, which is still inscribed in gold letters 
on the tomb at the door of St. Peter's. 1 But Adrian's 
arguments made no impression ; they were even censured 
as absurd in the Council of Paris (a.d. 824). 

Leo in. succeeded to greater troubles and greater 
honours. Two of Adrian's nephews, incensed by their 
loss of influence under a new pontificate, surprised his 
person, and beat him till left for dead. "When brought 
to trial they accused the pope of a number of crimes 
which are not recorded. They were important enough 
to bring Charlemagne for the fourth time to Eome. He 
assembled a council in St. Peter's, where he sat on the 
same throne with the pope, and proposed to inquire into 
these allegations : but the council refused to judge the 
Apostolic see, the head of all Churches, and Leo purged 
himself by his own oath. 

The Holy see was plainly in need of a powerful 
protector, and the king was never indisposed for new 
honours or innuence. Charles had filled Eome with 
magnificent presents, the spoils of his many victories ; 
he always affirmed that he desired notliing in return 
but the favour of the apostle, but it may be concluded 
he was not altogether unprepared for the scene that was 
now enacted. 

On Christmas-day 800, he appeared in St. Peter's 
arrayed in the patrician purple. Suddenly a shout 

1 This pope is famed for absolving the Mercian king Offa from the 
murder of Ethelbert, king of the East Angles. On this occasion Offa, as 

K 



130 



THE CARLO VINGIAN EMPIRE. 



arose among his attendants, the church resounded with 
acclamations of " Life and victory to Charles Augustus, 
most pious and pacific emperor, created by God !" The 
pope immediately placed a crown upon his head, and 
after anointing him with sacred oil, conducted him to a 
throne, where Leo with all the clergy and people did 
homage to him, after the fashion of the Csesars. He 
returned to the palace attired in imperial robes, and 
the same day issued regulations for the government of 
the Church, subscribed with the signature, " Charles, 
emperor of the Eomans." 1 

This transaction, which is termed the "translation of 
the empire," is affirmed to have been so wholly unpre- 
meditated that the pope was not in coronation vest- 
ments, and the crown was hastily fashioned out of the 
ornaments of the altar. The imperialist writers repre- 
sent it as a celestial inspiration, the pope officiating as i 
chief prelate of an empire, which God had already 
allotted to Charles by the dispensation of conquest. I 
The Papists, on the contrary, regard the empire as the ; 
free gift of the sovereign pontiff whom God has " set 
over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, 
and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, 
to build, and to plant." 2 In later days this text was 
a familiar weapon in the armoury of the Yatican, but it 
may be doubted whether the perversion was yet in 
vogue. The fact appears to be that the pope acted I 
as the existing governor of Borne, wishing to pay a 
compliment to the great monarch. Stephen had invested 
the same prince and his father with the patrician 

Ina did before, and Ethelwulf after, granted a tax of a penny from every ! 
family in his dominions, to the English College at Rome. This was after- 
wards made the pretence of claiming " Peter pence," or " Eome scot," j 
as tribute to the pope. 

1 Hist. dell. Imp. Rom. in Germ, di Greg. Letti., i. 107-9. 

* Jer. i. 10. 



DOMINIONS. 



131 



purple, and Leo, acknowledging him for the suzerain of 
whom the see held its temporal possessions, saluted him 
emperor. 1 The old senate, to whose authority the pope 
had practically succeeded, did the same to Augustus, 
only the senate conferred the sovereignty of their own 
territories, while the pope affected to give away those 
of others. Charlemagne, however, like Augustus, had 
already established his title by the sword, and no one 
was disposed to question the legitimacy of his claim. 
His accession was greeted with universal acclamations at 
Eome, and a gold medal was struck bearing the inscrip- 
tion, " Renovatio Imperii" 

The empire, which fell with Augustulus, rose 
in greater majesty under Charlemagne. Two-thirds 
of the old western empire obeyed his sway, and 
the remainder was more than compensated by his 
acquisitions in Germany. His hereditary kingdom 
embraced all France and the Netherlands, from the 
sea to the Ehine. Thirty years of conquest added 
Germany as far as the Vistula, and from the Elbe to 
the Danube. To the south, he was lord of Italy, down 
to Calabria, and of the Spanish march which reached 
from the Pyrenees to the Ebro. 2 Eastward, he ruled 
Dalmatia, Hungary, and the Danubian provinces. Had 
he pushed his arms in that direction, instead of the 
north, there was nothing to resist his advance to the 
Bosphorus, and Eome might have recovered in his 
person the reunited empire of the Caesars. 3 His imperial 

1 Leo had previously recognised the sovereignty of Charles, by solicit- 
ing his confirmation of his own election to the see. 

2 It was on Charlemagne's return from one of his Spanish expeditions 
(a.d. 778) that he met with the disaster at Ronceveaux, in the passes of 
the Pyrenees, which form the subject of the romance of Roland his 
nephew. 

3 The Byzantine Court was certainly not inclined to provoke the ex- 
periment. The empress Irene tempted the western Augustus with a 
treacherous offer of marriage, and her successor recognised his right to 

K 2 



132 



THE CARLO VING IAN EMPIRE. 



grandeur was augmented by the absence of all com- 
petition. Great Britain and Ireland were divided as 
yet into petty states. Southern Spain languished under 
the Arabs, and the Greek empire was rapidly decaying. 
Charlemagne was recognised, as the second great sove- 
reign of the world, by the famous Haroun al Easchid, 
whose empire extended from Africa to India. 

He assumed the double-headed eagle for the imperial 
cognizance, signifying (as some authors report) the 
union of the Eoman and German empires ; but a similar 
monster has been traced on the column of Trajan, and 
its adoption as the imperial ensign has been variously 
ascribed to the times of Constantine, and to the division 
of the empire between Arcadius and Honorius. Others 
reduce it as low as the reign of Sigismund (a.d/ 1387) ; 
it would appear, however, to have been used by the 
Greek emperors, and so passed to the crown of Eussia, 
which still claims to represent the eastern empire. 1 

The eagle was the ancient standard of the Eomans, 
adored by the legions as the omen and instrument 
of victory. In the fourth century of Christianity, 
this ensign was largely supplanted by the red dragon 2 
(introduced perhaps by the barbarians), which on that 
account (according to some expositors) is adopted in 
the Apocalypse to symbolise the power which, after 
persecuting the primitive Church, 3 gave its authority 
and seat to the beast, 4 and at a later stage of the 

Italy north of Benevento, retaining only Calabria and Sicily to the 
Greek empire. 

1 "Russia, Ancient and Modern," p. 87. The Russian eagle is dis- 
tinguished by the heads being crowned, and the claws "grasping a sceptre 
and orb. Morery says that its wings are turned downwards, ■ while 
those of the German eagle are elevated, but in ordinary representations, 
this position is often reversed. Under the German empire the heir who 
bore the title of " King of the Romans " used a single-headed eagle. 

2 Amm. Marc, xvi. 10. 3 Rev. xii. 3, 13. 
4 Rev. xiii. 1, 2, 5 ; comp. Dan. vii. 3, 7, 21. 



ALLIANCE OF CHURCH AND STATE. 



133 



vision is seen carrying the mother of harlots on its 
back. 1 Certainly, the alliance now inangnrated between 
the empire and the see laid the foundation of the 
temporal supremacy of the pope, as Constantine's 
establishment did of his spiritual primacy. In both 
cases the imperial favour was transformed into a 
Divine and inalienable right. Charlemagne was hon- 
oured as the patron and protector of the see. But 
his successors were made to feel that another power 
was, in fact, seated upon their empire and directed 
its energies. 

The authority and ritual of the Eoman Church 
were now propagated with all the power of the State. 
Charlemagne was a missionary of the Mohammedan 
rather than the Apostolical type. His wars were 
all religious; as fast as any nation submitted to 
his arms, he compelled it to share his faith. In this 
way he dragooned the Saxons into baptism, and, 
once baptised, apostasy was punished with death. 
Bishoprics, schools, colleges, churches, were planted 
in rapid succession. The emperor's mental and bodily 
vigour was astonishing ; the sword, the Church, and 
literature were propagated with equal ardour. But 

1 Rev. xvii. 3, 4. Mr. Elliott understands the first beast to symbolise 
pagan Rome, and the second papal Rome. An expositor of a different 
school identifies the first beast with the "scarlet-coloured beast" of 
Rev. vii. 3, which takes the harlot on its back (Rev. F. Meyrick on 
Anti-Christ. Smith's Bible Diet., Appx. to vol. i. p. 68. See also Dr. 
Wordsworth's " Babylon "). All expositions concur in representing the 
papacy, " the mother of abominations," as rising to power on the back of 
the Roman empire, and this is in striking accordance with the historical 
relations of the popes with Charlemagne and his successors. The 
"number of the beast," or " the number of his name " (Rev. xiii. 17, 18), 
is interpreted by an exposition as old as Irenseus to signify Lateinos 
(Latin). This is the true orthography of the word in Greek — the language 
of the Apocalypse, and the numerical value of its letters in that tongue 
amount to the specified number 666 ; viz. : — X = 30, a = 1, r = 300, e = 5, 
i = 10j v = SO, o = 70, s = 200 = 660. 



134 



THE CARLO VINGIAN EMPIRE. 



while his military arguments sufficed to extermi- 
nate Paganism, his literary efforts only kindled a few 
watch-fires which soon died out in the blackness 
of the surrounding night. It was possible to extir- 
pate idolatry by slaying its votaries, 1 but ignorance, 
which could not receive sentence of death, took its 
revenge by transferring Paganism into the precincts of 
the Church. The emperor's exertions, however, de- 
served so well of the Eoman Church, that he was 
canonised by pope Pascal in. (a.d. 1161). It is not 
exactly the honour one would have expected from the 
character of his private life ; but the devil's advocate 
is often merciful at Borne, and St. Charlemagne may 
be no worse than some of his neighbours. 2 

Charlemagne died at Aix-la-Chapelle, full of years 
and honours, 28th January 814. His son and suc- 
cessor Louis le D^bonnaire (translated pious and meek) 
inherited his dominions and his defects, without his 

1 Four thousand Saxons were put to death at one time by Charlemagne's 
order. 

2 The emperor's matrimonial relations might have been hard to defend. 
He divorced his first wife, Himiltrude, in order to marry Hermengarde, 
daughter to the Lombard king, but returned her to her father the next 
year, when his dethronement was in view. His third queen, Hildegarde, 
princess of Suevia, who brought him four sons and five daughters, died 
April 783, and before the year was out her place was supplied by 
Fastrade of Franconia. This princess dying, somewhat suspiciously, the 
next year, the imperial widower took a fifth wife in Luitgarde, a German 
lady, equally renowned for letters and hunting, who narrowly escaped the 
imperial dignity by dying just before it was conferred. Pepin rejected 
the hand of the Greek emperor Leo for his daughter, on the ground of his 
heresy ; but Charlemagne's orthodoxy did not prevent his accepting Leo's 
son for his daughter Rotrude, nor from listening to proposals for his 

' own marriage with Leo's widow, though stained with the blood of that 
same son, and the great champion of the image worship which Charle- 
magne denounced as " execrated by the Church of God." This sixth wife 
would have united the eastern empire with his own, but Irene's proposals 
(though not sincere) were so resented by her own court as to hasten her 
second deposition and death. 



SEPARATION OF FRANCE AND GERMANY. 135 

virtues. Equal to his father in violence and cruelty, 
he was vastly his inferior in all regal and manly 
accomplishments. 1 Louis associated his son Lothaire 
in the empire, giving him the kingdom of Italy ; he 
assigned other kingdoms to his younger sons, retaining 
the sovereignty of France to himself. 

The rebellion and quarrels of these princes, with 
the vices of the younger Lothaire, led to continual 
wars, in which the popes obtained opportunities of 
interfering in the disposal of the imperial crown, which 
materially augmented their own authority. On several 
occasions they eluded the emperor's confirmation of their 
elections ; but the tumults and disorders which ensued 
made them glad to return to the protection of a pre- 
rogative, which was invariably insisted upon by every 
emperor strong enough to assert it. In the end, the 
youngest brother Charles, surnamed the Bald, obtained 
the crown of France, which was thenceforth perma- 
nently separated from Germany ; and in 875 he 
compelled or persuaded pope John viii. to crown 
him emperor and king of Italy, to the prejudice of 
the German monarch, his elder brother. The pope 
added the ill-merited title of " Most Christian King," 
formerly given to Charlemagne, and still borne by the 
French sovereigns. 

His son Charles the Fat becoming imbecile, without 

1 Mosheim, ix. 1. Gratian has fathered upon this prince a decree 
which adds the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica to the donations 
made to the Holy see by his father and grandfather ; but Sicily was in 
the possession of the Greek emperor, and was not included in the western 
empire till recovered from the Saracens by the Normans in the eleventh 
century. The same decree pretends to authorise the ordination of the 
pope elect, without waiting for the imperial confirmation, a privilege 
certainly not attempted at this time. The decree is first mentioned by 
Leo Ostiensis, who died in the beginning of the twelfth century, and was 
doubtless one of the numerous forgeries of that age. — Bower, iv. 188. 



136 



THE CARLO VIXGIAX EMPIRE. 



male issue, pope Adrian in. claimed for the Italians the 
exclusive right to elect and consecrate their own king 
and emperor. The states of Germany, incensed at this 
pretension, immediately set aside Charles, and elected 
Arnulph, an illegitimate cousin, on the sole ground of 
his German birth. The Italians on their part chose 
Guido, duke of Spoleto, who was of the blood of 
Charlemagne by the female line. He received the 
imperial crown from the pope in St. Peter's (a.d. 891), 
and the Italian succession was continued for nearly a 
century. 

The Germans never ceased to consider Italy and 
the imperial crown as their inalienable appendages ; 
so that during this time there were always two, and 
sometimes more, rival " emperors of the west." The 
monarch who received the silver crown of Germany 
deemed himself ipso facto emperor and king of the 
Eomans ; he demanded at his leisure the iron crown 
of Lombardy at the hands of the archbishop of Milan, 
and the golden diadem of the empire from the chief 
metropolitan at Eome. The Italian princes, on the other 
hand, conceived themselves vastly more concerned in the 
election of a Eoman emperor than the barbarians of 
Germany. The idea of submitting the Eternal City to 
a Transalpine yoke was intolerable, and the pope was 
cordially of their mind. Unfortunately, neither pope 
nor princes possessed the patriotism which gave to 
Germany its bond of union and the surest pledge of 
success. 

The power and influence of the Eoman see throve, in 
fact, by means of the divisions among other rulers. On 
one pretence and another, appeals were multiplied from 
all parts of western Christendom ; even the eastern 
Church stooped to the same humiliation, in the great 
controversy which attended the elevation of Photius to 



QUARREL WITH THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



137 



the see of Constantinople. The pope, eagerly leaping 
into the chair of judgment, gave sentence against the 
patriarch, and pronounced him excommunicated. Photius 
angrily retorted with a similar anathema fulminated in a 
council at Constantinople (a.d. 867). In this document 
the Latin Church was accused of sundry grievous de- 
partures from Catholic faith and practice ; but except 
for the lasting schism which it occasioned in the Church, 
the controversy would be too frivolous for the notice 
of history. The articles of accusation were eight : 1 — 
1. Easting on Saturdays. 2 2. Cutting off the first week 
of Lent, and indulging in milk and cheese. 3. Forbid- 
ding the marriage of priests. 4. Eestricting the chrism 
to bishops. 3 5. Asserting " the horrid blasphemy " of 
the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and 
the Son. 6. Eaising deacons to the episcopate without 
passing through the priesthood. 7. Offering a lamb 
with the Eucharist at Easter, in imitation of the Jews. 4 
And 8. Eequiring the clergy to shave their beards. Such 
was the strange medley of doctrine and discipline then 
accounted among the weightier matters of the Gospel. 
Neither Church censured the other for its defects in 

1 Bower's " Lives of the Popes," iv. 330. Some authors augment the 
articles of accusation, but Mosheim reduces them to five, alleging that the 
others were added at a later period of the schism. — Ec. Hist., cent. viii. 2. 

2 Saturday was observed as a feast day in the primitive Church, and was 
so kept at Milan as late as Ambrose, when it was a fast at Rome. That 
bishop writes to Augustine, that when at Rome he did as the Romans did, 
and when at Milan as the Milanese. 

3 This chrism the Greek Church administered to children immediately 
after baptism, and by the hands of Presbyters. The Latin Church, by 
restricting its use to bishops, rendered some postponement necessary; and 
so the ceremony was changed into the present office of Confirmation, which, 
at a later period still, the Church of Rome erected into a sacrament. 

4 The old Ordo Romanus contains a form for the consecration of a lamb 
at Easter; but it is not probable that it was offered along with the 
Eucharist. Cardinal Bona calls the assertion a putidum mendacium. — 
Rer. Liturg., ii. 8. 



138 



THE CARLO VLXGrlAN EMPIRE. 



righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Neither 
complained of Mariolatry, saint-worship, and the gross 
superstitions universally practised with respect to pil- 
grimages, relics, pictures, and images. Neither de- 
manded the free circulation of the Word of God, or the 
preaching of that saving faith through which the sinner, 
justified by Christ, receives the sanctifying Spirit of 
God. Only one of these eight charges touches a real 
heresy — the enforced celibacy of the priesthood. The 
fifth relates to a difference in words more than mean- 
ing, though the Greeks still reject every explanation. 1 
It is certain that the clause was originally interpo- 
lated into the Meene Creed without sufficient ecclesias- 
tical authority ; but it has been repeatedly explained, 
that it is not intended to assert (as the Greeks object) a 
double procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and 
the Son, as two original independent principles of being, 
but only what our Lord Himself affirms, that the Son 
partakes of all things with the Father ; and therefore 
the Holy Spirit is of the Father hj and with the Son. 
This the Greeks also believe; but their zeal for a 
formulary elaborated with so much pains in the first 
two General Councils, has hitherto rendered them deaf 
to all explanation. 

The six remaining points are questions of discipline 
hardly calling for discussion. 

1 The western doctrine of the Double Procession, though so indig- 
nantly denounced by the whole East, is, in fact, easy to be reconciled with 
their own, and was so admitted at the Council of Florence, a.d. 1439 
("Russia, Ancient and Modern," p. 249). The word "Filioque " (and from 
the Son) were first interpolated into the Nicene Creed by some of the 
Spanish Churches, in the fifth or sixth century. The Council of Gentili, 
under Pepin I., sanctioned them (a.d. 764), and Charlemagne confirmed 
them at Aix-la-Chapelle (a.d. 808) ; but Leo in. disapproved the interpo- 
lation, though upholding the doctrine. He omitted the clause in the creed 
which he affixed in Greek and Latin to the tomb of St. Peter, but it was 
again inserted, 



CONTEMPORARY SUCCESSIONS (GERMAN EMPIRE). 



WESTERN" EMPIRE. 


Eastern 
Emperors. 


A.D. 


Italy. 


Germany. 


France. 


Popes of Rome. 




885 


Guido of Spo- 












leto 


Arnulph ... 


Eudes 


Stephen vi. 




ooo 











Leo v. 


eon 









Jb ormosus. 




893 


Lambert ... 




Charles in. 






897 




••• 




Stephen vn. 




899 





Louis in. 






900 
yui 
904 


Louis of Aries. 






j~ Theodore n. 




• 

Berenger of 
Friuli. 







(John ix. 




905 








Benedict iv. 




906 








( Leo v. 

{ Christopher. 




907 







••• • 


Sergius HI. 




910 









Anastasius in. 




911 




Conrad i. ... 






Al 1 

-A.iexauo.er. 


912 










Lando 


Constantiue VI. 


913 


••• 








John x. 




919 





Henry i. 










••• 




Raoul. 






924 


Uaoul. 










926 


Hugo, King of 
Aries. 










928 










Leo vi 




929 








Stephen vm. 




931 








John xi. 




936 





Otho I. 


T.nma txt 

UUulo 1 V . «*• 


of ° ? n " 




939 








otejjuen ix. 




943 








ATovtin TTT 
Mai till 111. 




945 


Lothaire. 










949 








ixgapetus ii. 




you 


.uereuger. 








954 






-Lotnaire. 






iJOO 









T 1, 

J oiin xn. 




yoy 











Roniauus. 


962 


Otho, Emperoi 








Leo vm. 




963 










J JNicepuorus. 










(i nocas. 


yo4 









Beu edict v. 




965 








John xin. 




969 











J onn Zjimisces. 


972 








fDomnus n. 











"^Benedict vi. 




9/3 


Otlio ii. 










975 








Benedict vn. 




982 


Otho in. 










984 









John xiv. 




985 









John xv. 




986 






Louis v. 






987 






Hugh Capet. 






996 








Gregory v. 




997 






Robert" ... 


John xvi., An- 
tipope. 




999 








Sylvester n. 




1001 


Henry ii. 










1003 








("John xvn. 
{John xviii. 




1009 








Sergius iv. 




1012 








Benedict vm. 




1024 


Conrad n. ... 






John xix. 




1025 










Coustantiue vn 



CHAPTEE VI. 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 

Saracen Alarms — Leonine City — Distractions of the Empire — State of 
the Papacy — Root of the Evil — Italian Princes — Reign of Profligacy 
— Reunion with Germany — Imperial Supremacy — Struggles of the 
Papacy — Otho the Bloody — Otho in. — Electors of Germany — 
Henry n. — Conrad — Henry m. — Grandeur of the Empire — Simony at 
Rome — Political Power — Forged Decretals — Canon Law — Heathen 
Acquisitions — State of Religion — Monks — Saints — Relics — Purga- 
tory — Transubstantiation — Pious Frauds — Viees of the Clergy— 
Universal Panic. 

The Italians were not without good reason in demanding 
a sovereign of their own. The French and German 
armies had enough to do in defending their own coasts 
from the incursions of the Northmen, while the Saracens, 
after passing from Spain into Africa, had seized Sardinia, 
Sicily, 1 and Calabria, and were beginning to ravage the 
Tuscan shore. They had even appeared at the mouth of 
the Tiber, and threatened the capital of Christendom (a.d. 
834). Three years after, their corsairs burnt the suburbs 
of Eome, and, after plundering the churches of St. Peter 
and St. Paul, retired with enormous spoils and a crowd 
of miserable captives. This outrage determined Leo iv. 
to enclose the Vatican Hill, which had been hitherto 
without the walls, and the magnificent buildings called 
the Leonine City were begun and finished in four 

1 Euphemius, the Greek exarch in Sicily, revolted a.d. 828, and called 
the Saracens to his assistance. He was slain in the war, and the Moslems 
having gained possession of that island and Calabria, all that remained 
to the Greek emperor in Italy, kept them till expelled By the Normans in 
the eleventh century. 



142 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 



years (848-52) by the help of miinificent contributions 
from the western nations. 

The Saracens, making a new attempt during the pro- 
gress of the works, were repulsed by the Italian fleet 
with great slaughter ; numbers of prisoners were taken 
and gibbeted on the coast, while others were condemned 
to work in chains at the churches of the conquerors. 
Still the corsairs swarmed on the coasts. A few years 
later they compelled the duke of Naples to purchase 
immunity by joining their expedition against Eome. 
John VHi. j after excommunicating the duke, and his 
brother the bishop, to very little purpose, ransomed 
the Eternal City by agreeing to pay a tribute of twenty- 
fiye thousand mancuses yearly (877). 

The pope was hardly free from the Moslems, when 
he fell into the hands of the lords of Spoleto and 
Tuscany, who seized him in his palace and plundered 
the city. The pontiff fled to Prance, where he excom- 
municated the aggressors, and crowned Charles the 
Fat emperor (880). This prince, however, was too 
much occupied with the Normans at home to render aid 
to Italy; and the necessity for an Italian emperor grew 
daily more imperative. The design failed from want of 
union among the princes and states of Italy. They could 
neither agree in their choice, nor submit to the vote of 
the majority. The popes, wearied of mediating between 
their petty factions, began again to look beyond the Alps 
for a Defensor Ecclesice. Formosus invited the German 
emperor Arnulph to drive out the Italian claimants and 
crowned him at Eome (a.d. 896). 

On this occasion, to guard against the violence 
repeatedly practised at papal elections, the order was 
renewed to await the imperial confirmation before 
consecrating the elect. The empire itself, however, 
was now in dispute : Arnulph left Eome after a 



STATE OF THE PAPACY. 



143 



sojourn of fifteen days, and returned to Bavaria. In 
Italy the most profligate characters pursued one another 
in the chase for power, and the effect on the Holy 
see has been described by its most devoted historian. 
In entering on the tenth century, Cardinal Baronius 
denounces it as " an iron age, barren of all goodness : a 
leaden age, abounding with all wickedness : a dark age, 
remarkable for the scarcity of writers and men of learn- 
ing." " In this century," he continues, "the abomi- 
nation of desolation was seen in the temple of the Lord : 
in the see of St. Peter, revered by the angels, were 
placed the most wicked of men — not pontiffs, but 
monsters. And how hideous was the face of the Eoman 
Church, when filthy and impudent courtesans governed 
all at Eorae, changed sees at their pleasure, disposed of 
bishoprics, and intruded their lovers into the see of St. 
Peter. Xo mention was then made of the clergy 
electing or consenting ; the canons were trodden under 
foot, the decrees of the popes were despised, the ancient 
traditions turned out of doors ; the old customs, the sacred 
rites and former method of choosing popes, were quite 
laid aside. The Church ~was then without a pope, hut not 
without a head ; its Spieitual Head never abandoned it." 1 
Such, by the confession of the Papists themselves, 
was the result of erecting the bishop of Eome into 
universal primate and a temporal prince. The papal 
claims were never so extensively submitted to as at this 
very time. The Churches of France and Germany were 
subjugated by the power of Charlemagne. The trouble- 
some Africans had been taken out of the way by the 
Saracens. Constantinople and the East rendered a 
homage never conceded before or since. The emperor 
Leo v. humbly asked Stephen's permission to appoint 

1 Baron., ad an. 900. 



144 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 



his own brother to the patriarchal see, and was refused, 
though the Greek bishops supported the recommendation 
in terms of the most abject submission : " We know 
that we are to be corrected and reprimanded by your 
Apostolic see ; we humbly beseech you to deal mercifully 
with us, and receive those who have gone astray but 
repent and return to the fold ; that by your means peace 
may be restored in our days to a Church that has been 
so long divided and rent into factions." 1 There was abso- 
lutely no dissenting voice. Eeformation was a word as 
yet unspoken. From all quarters of the world Greeks 
and barbarians, kings, lords, and pilgrims of every rank 
and both sexes, sought the oracle of the Vatican for the 
remission of their sins, or the gratification of their 
desires. To exempt the sacred arbitrator from all secular 
control, the temporal sword had been united to the 
spiritual, yet, by the confession of its advocate, the 
Church was never so enslaved, nor the Christian world so 
corrupt ! " Vaulting ambition that o'erleaps itself" had 
destroyed the pope by exalting the papacy. The papal 
chair was filled, but "the Church was without a pope ! " 

Happy had it been for Eome and for Christendom, 
if they who then made the discovery that the Church's 
life is in her Spiritual Head, had been content to abandon 
a deceitful phantom, and return to the Shepherd and 
Bishop oe Souls, who says indeed to His Church, " I 
will never leave you nor forsake you." 

The disorders complained of flowed directly from the 
attempt to erect in the Eoman pontiff a master for all 

1 Bar., ad an. 886. The objection to the emperor's brother was that 
he had been ordained deacon by Photius, and the pope had prohibited the 
promotion of any of his clergy. This trifle the Roman pontiff haughtily 
refused to dispense with, notwithstanding the entreaty of the Greeks. To 
Photius himself the pope's objection was that he had been elevated from a 
layman to the episcopate — a thing of constant occurrence in the primitive 
Church, and in Rome itself. 



ITALIAN PRINCES. 



145 



churches and all consciences. The splendour and influ- 
ence of the position exposed it to the worst passions of a 
corrupt nature. The robber-princes of Italy had only to 
secure Eome and the pope to obtain the imperial title. 
Each, as he captured a feebly-garrisoned capital, was 
solemnly crowned by the representative of Heaven, and 
when expelled by a rival was as quickly deposed, and 
perhaps excommunicated. Bishops and clergy veered 
about with every shifting wind from the Vatican. 
Absolutions, divorces, benedictions, and curses were in 
the power of any ruffian who could seize the person 
of a trembling priest. Popes themselves were deposed 
and created at the will of the temporary master of 
Eome. 

In this way Guy duke of Spoleto, and Lambert 
his son, Berenger duke of Friuli, and Louis, son of 
Boso king of Aries, enjoyed the coveted purple by 
turns ; but a more formidable prerogative was wielded 
by Adalbert marquess of Tuscany, when he seized the 
castle of St. Angelo, and made himself, more than any 
emperor, lord of the Eternal City. His wife Marozia was 
the most abandoned woman of the age, save her mother 
Theodora : these two beautiful profligates not only 
ruled the Eoman Court, but disposed of the pontifical 
chair at their pleasure. John x., the paramour of the 
mother, was by her influence raised successively to 
the sees of Bologna, Eavenna, and Eome. He was the 
first pope who was seen at the head of his troops, 
levying war like a secular prince. On Theodora's 
death, he fell a prey to the intrigues of Marozia, who 
caused him to be seized and put to death. Marozia, 
left a widow, married her husband's son and suc- 
cessor, Guy, and upon his death contracted another 
incestuous union with his half-brother Hugh, count of 
Provence and king of Lombardy. In spite of these 



146 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 



alliances, she had a son by pope Sergius in., whom 
Baronius calls " the slave of every vice, and the most 
wicked of men." This child she intruded on the Holy 
see at a tender age as John xi., bnt his half-brother 
Alberic, son of Adalbert, was so incensed at his mother's 
marriage with Hugh, that rallying his father's partisans, 
he gained possession of the castle and kept Marozia 
and the pope her son in cnstody for the rest of their 
lives. The pontiff lay above two years in his dnngeon 
before death vacated the see, and left the new lord to 
place his own puppet in St. Peter's chair. Twenty 
years later, Octavian, son and heir of Alberic, nominated 
himself pope, and, though only eighteen years old, was 
dutifully elected by the enslaved Church. This pontiff, 
who called himself John xn., introduced the practice 
observed by all his successors of taking a new name on 
elevation to the Holy see. 

The Eomans now saw the value of freedom of 
election, under the tyrant of St. Angelo. No relief 
was attainable from Lombardy, which was ruled by 
king Berenger with an iron hand, and all eyes were 
turned again to Germany. The blood of Charlemagne 
had become extinct with Louis iv., a.d. 912, when the 
States elected Conrad duke of Franconia, who was 
followed by Henry of Saxony. The Italian historians 
please themselves by denying the title of emperor to 
these three monarchs, because they were never crowned 
at Borne. Otho, son of Henry, after subduing the 
Sclaves and Bohemians, and driving the French out of 
Lorraine, listened to the groans of Italy. Marching 
to the relief of Adelaide, widow of Lothaire u., whom 
Berenger was besieging in her castle of Canossa, he 
obtained her hand and queenly dowry for his reward. 1 

1 Otho had previously wedded an English princess, the daughter of 
Edmund I., and Sigebert affirms that she was still living. 



REUNION OF ITALY. 



147 



Then proceeding to Eome at the supplication of pope 
John xii., he received the imperial crown at St. Peter's 
(a.d. 962). The Italian empire expired with Berenger 
the same year, and Italy returned under the shadow 
of the German throne. 

The pope and all the Eomans took the oath of 
allegiance to Otho, who confirmed to the Holy see all 
the grants of Pepin and Charlemagne. By a diploma 
dated 13th February, 962, which is still extant in 
letters of gold, the ancient right of confirming the elec- 
tion of the pope was restored to the imperial crown, 
and its sovereignty recognised as supreme in the ad- 
ministration of justice. 1 The emperor, however, had 
no sooner returned to Germany than pope John con- 
spired with Adalbert, son of Berenger, to bring back 
the reign of misrule. Otho again entered Eome, and 
convoking a council, cited the pontiff to answer for his 
crimes. John, who had fled with the Church treasures, 
replied by excommunicating all the ecclesiastics, in 
order that they might have no power to depose him 
or ordain a successor. The council proceeded, never- 
theless, to pass sentence, and Leo viii. was elected, 
confirmed, and consecrated, 6th December, 963. But 
the moment the emperor withdrew his troops, John's 
I brigands drove the new pope out of Eome, and restored 
that unworthy pontiff. At his bidding, a council of 
sixteen bishops, with the cardinal priests -and deacons, 
excommunicated the pope whom they had just elected, 
and grovelled before the tyrant whom they had just 
excommunicated. John being killed in a midnight 
intrigue, his faction placed one Benedict in the see, but 
the emperor returning with his troops, the council 
once more faced about, and restored Leo. According 



Bower, v. 106. 



148 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 



to De Marca and some other writers, they vested in 
the emperor the absolute right of appointing the pope 
for the future. 

Otho's death (974) was the signal for fresh com- 
motions at Eome. Benedict vi. was attacked in the 
Lateran, dragged to St. Angelo, and there strangled 
in the second year of his pontificate. The castle was 
now in the possession of a Eoman chief named Cencio : 
he was opposed by a Tuscan faction, and by their 
alternate triumphs, no less than five " Apostolicals " 
crossed the papal stage in ten years. 1 Otho n. marched 
into Italy to recover Calabria and Apulia, the dowry 
of his wife Theophania, daughter of the Greek emperor 
Eomanus ; but the Saracens and Greeks defeated him 
in a great battle. The emperor making his escape 
in a boat was captured by a Greek corsair, who, taking 
him for a countryman, accepted a ransom after forty 
days' captivity. Imputing this disaster to the treachery 
of the Eomans and Beneventines, who fled in the crisis 
of the action, Otho collected his forces, and marching 
on Beneventum, put the bulk of the inhabitants to death. 
Proceeding to "Rome, he invited to a great feast above 
a hundred senators, with the commanders and military 
officers who had abandoned his standard in the field. 
All these were remorselessly massacred by .his order 
in the banqueting-room. His coronation was to have 
followed, but death intervened, and Otho the Bloody 
received a grave instead of a crown, in the church of 
St. Peter (983). His son Otho was in Eome at the 
time, but being only twelve years old, and not yet 
declared " King of the Eomans," the Italians refused 
to elect him emperor, and the German lords rescuing 

1 Boniface VII. deposed, 974 ; Donus II. died, 975 ; Benedict VII. died, 
984 ; John xiv. murdered, 985 ; Boniface VII. restored and died, 985 ; 
John elected, but died before consecration, 985. 



FACTIONS AT ROME. 



149 



his person with some difficulty, carried him off and 
crowned him at Aix-la-Chapelle. 1 

Borne being again left a prey to her domestic 
factions, Crescentius the consul, son of the younger 
Theodora, obtained possession of the castle of St. 
Angelo, and overawed the successor of St. Peter. On 
the death of pope John xv. (996), Otho ill, who had 
an army before Bavenna, was solicited by the terrified 
clergy to name them a successor, and his nephew 
Bruno, a young man of twenty-four, was elected, on 
his mandate, as Gregory v. Otho following him to 
Rome, received the imperial crown (a.d. 996), 2 then 
besieging Crescentius in his castle, he induced him 
to quit the fortress on a promise of safety, and put 
him to death. The perfidious emperor was in turn 
compelled to flee from the exasperated populace. 
Having recovered his authority, he promised to 
marry the widow of the deceased consul, but the 
lady finding herself deluded and insulted, sent him 
a pair of poisoned gloves, which occasioned his death 
(a.d. 1002). 

Otho in. had conceived the design of restoring the 
imperial residence to the Palatine Hill. To prevent 
the civil wars that usually accompanied the election 
to the German throne, he procured a law in which 
the pope concurred, substituting the seven chief princes 
as Electors in the room of the national estates. The 
) proceedings were thus reduced into a more manageable 
. form, but the state of Germany never admitted the 

' 1 Leti., lib. iii. Morery's Diet. 

I 2 On this occasion a decree was approved by the pope and cardinals to 
\ this effect : that the Roman pontiffs should neither enjoy, nor pretend to, any 
authority over the empire or the person of the emperor in all that respected 
i his temporal authority, but that the Holy see should be supported in all 
, spiritual matters as it was then commonly reverenced, and in the jurisdic- 
tion conceded to it by Charlemagne. — Leti., iii. 



150 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 



fulfilment of Otho's dream. At his death the Electors 
chose Henry dnke of Bavaria, who obtained the title 
of Saint and Apostle of Hungary, from his zeal in the 
conversion of the dnke, his brother-in-law. He presided 
at councils, erected bishoprics, monasteries, and hos- 
pitals, and regulated, even at Eome itself, the liturgical 
usages of the Church. 1 Still his wars with France 
and Bohemia admitted of only one visit to the Eternal 
City, when he restored Benedict Yin. to his see, and 
received the imperial crown at his hands (a.d. 1014). 

To prevent the recurrence of similar disorders, the old 
obligations were repeated on either side. The emperor 
confirmed the donations of Pepin, Charlemagne, and the 
others : on the other hand, with the entire consent 
of the Church, he renewed the imperial rights in the 
election and confirmation of the pope. Both, however, 
died in the same year (1024), and while the empire 
lay vacant for two years, the papacy was simoniacally 
purchased by Benedict's brother, a layman, who was 
ordained and enthroned by the name of John xix. By 
this pontiff the new emperor Conrad n. (called the 
Salic) was crowned in St. Peter's, in the presence of 
Canute, king of Denmark and England, whose daughter 
afterwards became the wife of the emperor's son. 2 

Conrad was the first emperor who procured his 
son to be elected " King of " the Eomans " during 
his own lifetime. Still Henry in. was not admitted 
to the imperial throne without opposition, though 
the German empire rose under him to the plenitude 
of its lustre. " Prom the eastern frontiers, where the 

1 The vigils of the saints were instituted in his council at Dortniond, 
and they also introduced at Rome the practice of singing the creed after 
the Gospel. 

2 It was decreed by this emperor, that, in addition to the imperial and 
Lombardic crowns, a third crown of Italy was to be assumed by the Caesar 
at Modena. — Leti., iii. 



PAPAL SIMONY. 



151 



king of Poland had been compelled to do homage and 
submit to a partition of his territories, and where the 
duke of Bohemia was condemned to imprisonment, we 
see Conrad n. march westward to defend Burgundy 
against the pretensions of the French nobles. He 
defeated them on the plains of Champagne. His 
Italian vassals crossed Mount St. Bernard to his as- 
sistance. He caused himself to be crowned at Geneva, 
and held his diet in Soleure. Immediately afterwards 
we meet him in Lower Italy. Not less powerful 
and glorious was the reign of Henry in." 1 From 
Flanders to Hungary, from Denmark to Spain, he 
was the liege lord of the sovereigns of Christendom. 

In Eome the imperial sovereignty had been suffered 
to relax, and the city, in consequence, was the prey of 
contending factions, which disposed of the papacy by 
violence or simony. The brothers Benedict vin. and 
John xix. were kinsmen and nominees of the count 
of Tusculum. On the death of John, the count pro- 
cured the election of his own son, a youth of eighteen, 
who took the name of Benedict ix. A later pontiff 
describes him as a successor of Simon Magus, not 
of Simon Peter. His notorious immoralities provoked 
frequent insurrections, but the emperor Conrad sup- 
ported him, and though more than once expelled, 
he was always restored. At last he sold the papacy 
to John, archpriest of Eome, for a large sum of 
money, and betook himself to a career of unrestrained 
debauchery. 

Indignant at the tidings which reached him from 
the imperial metropolis, Henry in. repaired to Italy, 
and assembling a council at Sutri, deposed both the 
simoniacs ; then proceeding to Eome for a new election, 



1 Ranke, i. 1. 



152 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 



Henry himself nominated the candidate, who was im- 
mediately chosen, and taking the name of Clement n., 
crowned the emperor the same day. 

Aware of the slender hold on Italian allegiance to 
be obtained by means of occasional descents from across 
the Alps, the German emperors cordially favoured the 
growth of papal authority, only seeking to turn it to 
their own purposes by exercising a strict control over 
the appointment of the pope. The old restrictions were 
carefully renewed by Henry in. No election was to 
take place without the emperor's license, and the person 
elected was to be approved and confirmed by imperial 
authority before he entered on the office. These were 
the regulations observed with respect to other bishop- 
rics, and as both in Germany and Lombardy a large 
measure of civil authority pertained to the bishops, 
the imperial rights w^ere strictly enforced. 80 long as 
the emperor exercised the same prerogative at Eome, 
the political subjection of the pope was complete, and 
the Caesar gladly promoted his spiritual primacy as a 
second hold on the allegiance of the empire. Though 
stigmatised by Gregory the Great as a designation of 
Anti-Christ, the universal bishopric of the pope was 
now generally conceded. Other prelates regarded him 
as the source of their spiritual authority, and though 
the French and some Italian bishops stood out for 
primitive rights and the authority of councils, the 
almost universal doctrine of the tenth century made 
the Eoman pontiff vicegerent of Christ, and infallible 
judge of His Church. 1 

This persuasion was maintained by forged autho- 

1 Mosh. E. H., cent. x. The dogma of papal infallibility has never 
yet been formally authorised, and it is virtually denied whenever one pope 
differs from another. Nevertheless, it is invariably implied in every ponti- 
fical bull, and practically allowed by all Papists. 



HEATHEN ACQUISITIONS. 



153 



rities, with which the popes never scrupled to silence 
any who hesitated at their increasing demands. The 
famous donation of Constantine to pope Sylvester was 
forged in the decline of the Greek empire, in order to 
induce Pepin to imitate so illustrious an example. 
Acts of Councils and writings of ancient authors were 
freely interpolated ; above all, in the ninth century, the 
famous collection of " Decretal Epistles " was manu- 
factured, and ascribed to the learned Isidore bishop of 
Seville, who died some three hundred years before. 1 
These " Decretals" were a collection of canons and 
papal decrees, after the manner of the Code of Justinian ; 
they became the text-book of a new faculty, called 
the Canon Law, and being unhesitatingly acted upon in 
the Eoman Court, were imposed on the ecclesiastical 
tribunals of the empire. 

New accessions of power followed from the exertions 
made in the conversion of the heathen, partly by pious 
missionaries earnest for souls, but much oftener by 
monarchs bent upon conquest. The Huns, Saxons, and 
Frieslanders were driven to the baptismal font by the 
sword of Charlemagne. The Cimbrians, Jutes, Swedes, 
and Danes were evangelised by the milder voice of the 
good monks- Ausgar and Authbert. 2 The Norwegian 
pirate Eollo accepted Christianity together with the 
hand of the French king's daughter, and the maritime 
province thenceforth denominated Normandy. His 
army following his example embraced without a scruple 
a religion in which no one even pretended to instruct 
them. Their paternal country had been visited with 
some beams of Gospel light from the efforts of the king 
Hagen Adelsteen, who was educated in England (933), 

1 See the authorities quoted by Mosheim, cent. ix. 2. 

2 Ausgar was created archbishop of Hamburgh, with the primacy of 
the North, by Louis le Debounaire (814). 



154 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 



diligently followed up by the sainted Olaus, who 
burnt the idol Thor in the presence of his wor- 
shippers at Drontheim. The conquests of Swein, 
who annexed the crown of Norway to that of Sweden 
(a.d. 1031), completed the conversion. From Norway 
the good tidings spread to the Orkneys, to Iceland, and 
Greenland, all of which were evangelised in the tenth 
century. 

Otho the Great was scarcely inferior to Charlemagne 
in the zeal with which he extirpated the remaining 
seeds of Paganism, and fostered the infant Churches of 
his dominions. The Hungarians, who had almost for- 
gotten their military catechisings, were reclaimed by 
Adalbert archbishop of Prague, who baptised their 
leader's son Stephen; and this prince, by a lavish adminis- 
tration of rewards and punishments, coupled with some 
little Christian instruction, succeeded in extirpating the 
ancient idolatries. 1 The popes doing little themselves 
in the missionary field, entered freely into the labours 
of all others. John xiii., hearing that Micislaus 
duke of Poland had been baptised at the instigation 
of his wife (a Bohemian princess), sent a bishop with 
a numerous train of ecclesiastics to advance the cause. 
The missionaries proved utterly ignorant of the lan- 
guage, but the duke coming to their assistance, by dint 
of pains and penalties compelled the reluctant Poles to 
follow his example. 2 

1 Sylvester II. sent him a crown with the titles of king and legate, and 
appointed him Vicar- General of the Holy see within his dominions, with 
the privilege of having the cross carried before him. 

2 Russia owed her Christianity about the same time to the Greek 
Church, through the marriage of Vladimir the Great with the princess 
Anne, as we have related in another work (" Russia, Ancient and 
Modern," p. 57). To the Greeks belonged also the honour of Christianising 
Bulgaria, though the popes thought fit to claim the spiritual jurisdiction 
by reason of some abortive efforts of Charlemagne. The monks Cyril and 



STATE OF RELIGION. 



155 



These conversions were very different from the 
spiritual awakening and renewing of primitive Chris- 
tianity. The religion now proposed to the Pagans 
consisted, like their own, far more in external wor- 
ship than in inward saving faith. The first rank in 
the favour of God was assigned to monks and nuns, 
styled, by way of pre-eminence, the " religious " orders. 
Others were accounted religious in proportion as they 
imitated the observances of these recluses. 1 The core 
and essence of religion was made to consist in the 
worship of images and dead men. God could only be 
approached by the intercession of the saints. Even the 
merciful Eedeemer was supposed to need the entreaties 
of His mother, to recommend to His favour the sinners 
for whom He died. The Virgin and saints were 
thought to be most effectually invoked by worshipping 
some relic of their bodies or clothes. Heads, limbs, 
hairs, petticoats, even the filings of St. Peter's chains 
had a magical effect in compelling the attention and 
securing the favour of the glorified spirits. The 
mummy-pits of Egypt, and the catacombs of Pagan 
Eome, furnished most of the relics ; but according to 
the monks, *He whom the psalmist adored as " taking 
His way in the sea, and His path in the great waters, 
whose footsteps are not known," was constantly inter- 
posing, — not to attest revealed truth, or impart discoveries 
beneficial to mankind, — but to disclose the spot where 
the mouldering bones of some saint, real or imaginary, 

Methodius, sent by the empress Theodora, were the real evangelists of the 
Bulgarians, Mcesians, Bohemians, and Moravians. 

1 Sacred virgins are mentioned as early as the fourth century, but the 
first convents of females were the colleges of canonesses instituted by 
Charlemagne on the same footing with his canons (a.d. 817). The popes 
disapproved these orders because they imposed no vow of poverty, but 
allowed the members to retain their property, and expend it on good works 
at their own discretion. 



156 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 



lay concealed. Miracles were asserted in greater abun- 
dance than those of Christ and the apostles, but their 
object was almost invariably to verify a relic, and 
increase the profit of those who exhibited it. 

The saints were multiplied in proportion to the 
demand ; but as the privilege was precious, the manufac- 
ture, once free to bishops and councils, was reserved 
to the pope. John xv. was the first to exercise the 
right of his sole prerogative in the canonisation of the 
bishop Udalric (a.d. 993). 

Purgatory was now also an established doctrine, 
and next to relics for the living, prayers for the dead 
were the most meritorious objects in the eyes of a 
" religious" Christian. Such prayers were originally 
offered for friends and benefactors from motives of 
private piety ; then companies and colleges agreed to 
pray for the souls specially commended to their devotion. 
The monks of Cluny established a yearly festival to 
implore the deliverance of all departed spirits from the 
expiatory flames, and the feast was added to the Latin 
calendar as All Souls-day (a.d. 998). It followed that 
the celebration of the Eucharist, as the highest act of 
the liturgy on earth, was deemed to extend to the 
departed also, and when the figment of transubstantia- 
tion was added, this completed the doctrine of the mass 
as a sacrifice for quick and dead. 

The rites and ceremonies of the Church multiplied in- 
ordinately. A large part of them were copied directly from 
the Pagans ; not only the same temples and altars, but the 
same images, and probably the same relics, served alike 
the old worship and the new. Great powers of inven- 
tion were shown in adapting the popular superstitions 
to Christian uses, and then assigning them a Christian 
history. The explanation of the " Divine Offices " afforded 
scope for the ingenuity of several writers, and these 



DOCTRINAL ERROR. 



157 



works, though full of puerilities, are the most important 
of the times. 

The ignorance which enveloped all classes of society 
has no parallel in our own day, except perhaps in the 
interior of Africa. Charlemagne himself learnt to write 
in mature age. The bulk of the laity, and not a few 
of the clergy, were unable to read. Printing not being 
invented, and manuscripts scarce, the price of books was 
enormous, and they were seldom seen out of the monas- 
teries. The Holy Scriptures were only known to the 
people from the portions recited in the Church services, 
and these were often either in a foreign tongue, or made 
unintelligible by a foreign or uneducated reader. The 
clergy themselves had but little knowledge of the Holy 
Scriptures. The commentaries published for their as- 
sistance consisted either of a dry summary of ancient 
expositions, or of new and fanciful allegories. There 
was very little preaching of a solid Scriptural kind. 
The sum and substance of human wisdom was supposed 
to reside in Aristotle's logic, yet Aristotle, being only 
known through the medium of the Arabs, was really 
as little understood as St. Paul, and the most vital 
doctrines were miserably perverted by a fantastic 
application. 

Eeasoning in this fashion, Paschasius Eadbert, a 
monk of Corby, in Saxony (a. d. 831), propounded 
the novel doctrine, that after the consecration of the 
Holy Eucharist, though there be still the figure of 
bread and wine, no other substance remains but the 
body and blood of Christ our Lord; the very flesh 
which was born of the Yirgin and suffered on the 
cross. This absurdity was refuted by Eabanus 
Maurus archbishop of Mentz — then the great light of 
Germany and France, by Johannes Scotus, the learned 
Irish divine and logician, and by Eatramn or Bertram, 



158 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 



another monk of Corby, unless Bertram be only another 
name for one of the other two. 1 Eadbert's doctrine gave 
great offence to the French Church, and the king 
requested Scotus to answer it. The teaching of the 
monk was generally repudiated by the learned ; but in 
the ignorance of the next two centuries his opinion 
prevailed so widely, that when Berengarius (a.d. 1050) 
revived the argument of Scotus, both were severely 
censured, and the logical fallacy of transubstantiation 
was formally received as a divine mystery. 

The theological errors of the clergy may be palliated 
on the ground of ignorance, but no amount of charity 
can doubt their complicity in the impostures daily 
practised with respect to relics and miracles, nor exempt 
them from the awful guilt implied in the very con- 
ception of a " pious fraud." 

A candid mind might hesitate to receive statements 
of the appalling wickedness of an order of men separated 
from others to maintain the influence of religion and 
morals. But the man who can impose a falsehood in the 
name of the all-seeing God, with the view of turning the 
remorse of another's conscience to his own profit or 
power, has forfeited all claim upon Christian candour. 
He has lost the conscience of right and wrong, and is so 

1 Mosheim conceives Bertram and Ratranm to be the same person, but 
Bower has given good reasons for identifying Bertram with Scotus (v. 17o). 
Scotus was one of the few really learned divines of the day. He was the 
friend and companion of the emperor Charles the Bald. William of 
Malmsbury makes him a companion of Alcuin, preceptor of Alfred the 
Great, and one of the first founders of the University of Paris. The 
ultramontane writers contend there were two John Scotts, an ortho- 
dox and a heretic — a desperate hypothesis which is contradicted by 
the fact of the treatise against transubstantiation being written by the 
emperor's desire. There is no doubt that the dispute originated in the 
subtleties of the two great logical schools, the nominalists and the realists. 
Eadbert's was an offensive illustration of the realist hypothesis, which 
properly startled the divines. It was first ignorance, then gain, and 
finally arrogance, which made it an article of religious belief. 



CORRUPTION OF THE CLERGY. 



159 



plainly prepared for every species of villany that we 
cease to be surprised at the unspeakable abominations 
of the Latin clergy. 

As if by a kind of judicial reprobation, the two 
iniquities universally charged on all orders, from the 
pope to the parish priest, were concubinage and 
simony. The former was, indeed, impudently alleged 
of the married clergy for retaining their wives, as the 
whole clergy of the eastern Churches do to this day. 
But where the papal interdict of marriage prevailed, 
the charge was in most cases too accurately worded. 
Kepudiating the Divine ordinance in the affectation of a 
higher life, the celibate priesthood wallowed in impurities 
which it would be polluting to describe. Claiming the 
awful power of retaining and remitting sins at discretion, 
they bought and sold the Divine trust with an audacity 
exceeding the sin of Simon Magus. The most ignorant 
and the most wicked of men obtained ordination as priests 
and bishops, and churches were sold, without shame, to 
the highest bidder. The pope himself sold the Holy 
see ; and, what is more surprising, after receiving the 
purchase-money, actually delivered possession. 

Such were the results of the imperial and pontifical 
alliance, when the horrible cloud of vice and ignorance 
was suddenly pierced as by a flash of lightning. At the 
close of the century a cry arose that the end of the world 
was at hand. An exposition spread with amazing 
rapidity that the thousand years of the Apocalypse dated 
from the birth of Christ, and being now expired, Satan 
was to be let loose, Anti-Christ to appear, and the imme- 
diate conflagration of the world to ensue. 1 It might 
well be said that already " there were many Anti- 
christs," 2 whose presence was far from being generally 



1 Rev. xx. 2-4. 



2 1 John ii. 18. 



160 



THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 



unwelcome ; but the near prospect of judgment created 
a wide and terrible panic. Numbers hastened to Pales- 
tine, where they supposed Christ would appear ; others, 
not so eager to meet Him, gave themselves as bondsmen 
to the Church, trusting by that humiliation to diminish 
the rigour of the approaching sentence. An eclipse of 
the sun or moon drove crowds of trembling sinners to 
the rocks and caves. The opulent tried to bribe the 
coming Judge by lavish donations to priests and monks. 
Stately edifices were allowed to decay, or pulled down 
as useless ; and no language can express the confusion 
and despair that prevailed till the fated time had 
passed. 1 

It would be unjust to charge this melancholy panic 
on the religious system prevalent at the time, because 
daily experience shows that numbers remain unmoved 
under the most evangelical teaching, and the Scripture 
warns us that this fatal unbelief will continue to the 
last. But it may well be questioned whether a Church 
which grasps at temporal dominion, and places the 
essence of faith in unreasoning submission to its own 
decrees, can ever duly prepare the soul to "meet the 
Lord in the air." 2 The only genuine hope for that day 
lies in personal union with the Lord our Eighteousness, 
in the living faith of our justification by His blood, and 
the Spirit of adoption bearing witness with our spirit 
that we are the children of God. 3 Of this kind of faith 
and holiness we read, alas ! nothing in the history of 
the papacy during the tenth or any succeeding century. 

1 Mosheim, x. 2. °- 1 Thess. iv. 17. 3 Rom. viii. 16. 



> 



31 



CONTEMPORARY SUCCESSIONS. 



A.D. 


"Western 
Empeeors, 


Popes of Bomb. 


Kings of Era nce 


Dukes of Apulia. 


England. 


1025 










Canute. 


1031 






Henry i. 






1034 




Benedict ix. 








1035 










Harold i. 


1039 


Henry in. 










1040 




... 






Hardicanute. 


1042 










Edward, Cot 
fessor. 


1044 




Gregory vi. 








1046 




Clement n. 








1048 




Damasus n. 








1049 




Leo ix. 








1053 








William, Bras 
de Fer. 




1054 




Victor n. 








1056 


Henry iv. 










1057 




Stephen x. 








1059 




Nicolas ii. ... 




Robert Guis- 
card. 




1060 






Philip l 






1061 
1066 
1073 




Alexander n. 
Gregory vn. 






r Harold n. 
(William i. 










KINGS OF THE TWO 
SICILIES. 




1085 








Robert, the 
Hunchback. 




1086 




Victor in. 








1087 




Urban n. ... 






William n. 


1099 




Paschal n. 








1100 










Henry i. , 


1102 








Roger ii. 




1106 


Henry v. 










1108 






Louis vi. 






1118 




Gelasius n. 








1119 




Calixtus n. 








1123 


First Lateran Council, called the Ninth General Council. 





CHAPTEK VII. 



HILDEBRAND. 

Relations of the See to the Empire — Early Life of Hildebrand — Monk of 
Cluny — Legate in France — In Germany — Cardinal Archdeacon — 
Election of Alexander II. — Cadolus Anti-pope — Seizure of the Emperor 
— His vicious Life — Hildebrand Pope — Styled Gregory vn. — Lay In- 
vestiture and Marriage of the Clergy — Theory of Virginity — Council of 
Elvira — Nicsea — Apostolical Canons — Quinisext Council — Greek Prac- 
tice — Latin Church — Resistance of the Clergy — Efforts of Gregory — 
Consequent Immorality — Legantine Synods — Councils at Rome — Con- 
troversy on the Investiture — State of Germany and Italy — Vices of the 
Kings — Conflict of the Pope and the Emperor — Deposition and Ex- 
communication of Henry — Regalia of St. Peter — Power of the Curse — 
Submission of the Emperor — Absolution and Second Excommunication 
— Rival Emperors and Popes — Death of Rodolph — Gregory relieved 
by the Normans — His Flight and Death — Continuance of his Policy — 
Decrees of Victor and Otho — Rebellion of the Emperor's Sons — His 
Imprisonment, Escape, and Death — Contest continued by Henry v. — 
Same Question in France and England — Anselm — Concordats — Arrest 
of Pope Paschal — His Duplicity and Death — Excommunication of the 
Emperor by Calixtus — Final Concordat — Conflict of Obligations. 

Down to the eleventh, century the popes were content 
to claim the spiritual primacy of the Catholic Church. 
Though never seriously conceded — hardly very seriously 
urged — in the East, this claim was now generally 
established in the West. The pope was acknowledged 
as chief pastor, and his see as the centre of communion, 
by the Latin Church. He was the general referee and 
arbitrator on religious questions. He reproved the vices 
of princes too great to be admonished by their own 
bishops, and remonstrated with metropolitans when their 
decisions violated the canons of the Church. As general 
superintendent of the faith and morals of the clergy, it 

m 2 



164 



HILDEBR AND . 



was his office to exhort them everywhere to do their 
duty. His admonitions commanded respect with many 
who, in the absence of a free press and an enlightened 
public opinion, were glad to uphold an ecclesiastical 
chief against the wickedness of secular lords. 

Still this primacy was not an arbitrary power : it was 
subject to the canons of the Church and the law of the 
land. The pope himself was removable by a General 
Council ; his decrees were disregarded, even by ecclesi- 
astics, when they trenched on the rights or privileges of 
their churches. The archbishops, in accepting the office 
of papal legates, had not lost sight of their own national 
primacy ; and the kings had no intention of surrendering 
any rights of the crown. 

The work of the eleventh century was to convert this 
great pastoral authority into an absolute sovereignty over 
all churches and nations. The clergy of every country 
were claimed as the pope's subjects to the exclusion of 
their native allegiance. Bishops were merely his deputies, 
holding office by his appointment, and deriving all their 
spiritual authority out of the Holy see. Finally, the 
spiritual authority was declared to supersede, or rather 
incorporate in itself, all temporal power. All power 
in heaven and in earth — such was the blasphemous 
assertion- — belonged to the vicar of Christ. Kingdoms, 
no less than bishoprics, were subject to the keys of St. 
Peter : it appertained to his successor to give and to 
take away crowns. Their wearers were to be guided 
by the pope's counsels ; their revenues liable to the 
pope's demands. Disobedience to the pope incurred the 
penalty of deposition and excommunication; persons 
excommunicated by the see of Eome might be assassi- 
nated without the guilt of murder. 

This prodigious stride in the papacy was mainly due 
to the genius, perseverance, and indomitable ambition 



HIS EARLY LIFE. 



165 



of one man. The monk Hildebrand ruled the councils 
of the Holy see throughout the latter half of the century. 
Though occupying the pontifical chair but twelve 
years, he stood behind it during the reigns of five 
predecessors, and bequeathed his mantle and spirit to 
two successors of his own choice. Eight popes are thus 
represented in his person. The supremacy was so 
notoriously his device, that some historians speak of it 
as the Hildebrandine Heresy. 

At the beginning of the eleventh century the Eoman 
see was in as complete subjection to the imperial crown as 
any other bishopric. Under Henry in. four German popes 
succeeded on the sole nomination of the emperor. The 
Eoman delegates appeared at his court to sue out their 
conge d'etire, precisely like any other chapter ; and this 
subjection, though resented by the more ardent KomanLsts, 
was found the only safeguard against local violence and 
corruption. Such was the state of the Church when 
Hildebrand was born — the son of a poor carpenter, at 
Saone, in Tuscany. His early education was probably 
obtained in some neighbouring monastery ; his first ap- 
pearance in history is in the family of the archpriest John, 
who, notwithstanding the stupendous simony of pur- 
chasing the see, is reported to have been a good man, 
actuated only by a desire to get rid of the infamous 
Benedict. Hildebrand accompanied him in his exile 
into Germany ; and seems to have upheld his claim to 
the see, since it is solely through his recognition that 
Gregory vi. retains a place in the List of Popes, 

On the death of his patron, Hildebrand took the 
vows at Cluny in Burgundy, where as prior of that 
famous monastery he had the honour of receiving Bruno 
bishop of Toul, on his way to take possession of the 
papacy, to which he had been elected by a council con- 
voked by the emperor at "Worms. Hildebrand disclosed 



166 



HILDEBRAND. 



to his guest the grief and indignation which animated his 
breast, at the thought of the chair of St. Peter being 
disposed of by the secular power. According to some 
authors, his glowing eloquence induced the bishop to 
lay aside the pontifical ensigns, and pursue his journey 
on foot in the habit of a pilgrim. His archdeacon, 
however, relates that Bruno had travelled in that garb 
out of Germany, and that in reluctantly yielding to the 
imperial pleasure he had stipulated for submitting him- 
self to a free election at Eome. 

Certain it is that Eruno arrived at the Vatican as a 
pilgrim, and Hildebrand with him. Walking barefooted 
into the church, they prostrated themselves at the tomb 
of the apostle ; then submitting himself to the will of 
the electors, Bruno was unanimously chosen and en- 
throned by the name of Leo ix. One of his first acts 
was to ordain Hildebrand sub- deacon, and employ him 
in the affairs of the Holy see. The monk acquired such 
influence, that at Leo's death, he was despatched to 
the emperor with a proxy from the whole Eoman 
Church to elect a successor. By Hildebrand' s voice 
the bishop of Eichsted became pope Victor n., and 
like Thomas-a-Becket in a later day, exchanged the 
affection of his imperial master for the extreme phase 
of the rising anti- imperial policy. Hildebrand was 
rewarded with the appointment of legate in France, 
with authority (though still but a sub- deacon in the 
Church) to convene councils and preside over bishops 
and metropolitans. To his Council of Tours the emperor 
was foolish enough to send ambassadors, asking that the 
king of Castile might be restrained by the spiritual arm 
from assuming the imperial title, and compelled to obey 
the emperor of the Bomans. Hildebrand eagerly caught 
at the opportunity of asserting the papal authority. 
With Victor's approval he sent legates into Spain, who, 



NEW COLLEGE OP CARDINALS. 



167 



by threats of excommunication and interdict, reduced 
the king to submission. 

Victor dying in 1057, Hildebrand was put in nomi- 
nation for the pontificate, but being still in France, 
and apparently not pressing his claim, the choice 
fell on Frederic of Lorraine, who assumed the title of 
Stephen ix. The new pontiff's brother Godfrey had 
married the widow of marquis Boniface, and was now 
regent of Tuscany, on behalf of the infant Matilda. 
This election, therefore, cemented the alliance of the 
Holy see with that powerful state. The pope enter- 
tained a design of investing his brother with the im- 
perial power vacated by Henry, who died just before 
Victor, leaving his infant son to Stephen's own guardian- 
ship. Whether to sound the princes on this project, or 
to apologise to the empress-regent for entering on the 
see without imperial confirmation, Hildebrand was sent 
as legate to Germany. During his absence the pope fell 
sick and died, having strictly enjoined the clergy and 
people not to elect a successor till the legate's return. 
The injunction was disregarded, but on Hildebrand' s 
arrival he ejected the intruder, and procured the election 
of the bishop of Florence, another of the Tuscan house, 
for whom he brought with him the empress-regent's 
approval. By this pope, Nicholas n., Hildebrand was 
created cardinal archdeacon, and universally recognised 
as the ruling person in Eome. 

To avoid the tumults still attendant on the popular 
election, a canon was now passed confirming the 
right of suffrage to the seven bishops of the Boman 
territory, and the twenty- eight presbyters who enjoyed 
the title of cardinals. The remainder of the clergy with 
the nobility and commonalty were only to be asked for 
their assent to the person elected. This canon, passed at 
a council in the Lateran (a.d. 1059), was the foundation 



168 



HILDEBRAND. 



of the Sacred College, and effected a great step to the 
sacerdotal ascendancy which the archdeacon had in view. 
The opportunity was further taken to limit the right of 
confirmation to emperors duly recognised by the Apos- 
tolic see. 

The pope dying three years after, Hildebrand ob- 
jected to Henry iv. as a minor not yet crowned emperor, 
notwithstanding that he had himself been the bearer of 
the regent's letters for the confirmation of Nicholas. The 
Eoman nobles took the alarm, and sending a deputation 
to the king, presented him with a gold crown and the 
patrician purple. The cardinals deemed it prudent to 
apply for the customary conge aVelire, but the empress, 
unwilling to recognise their new authority, returned the 
letter unopened, and Hildebrand joyfully proceeded to 
the election and enthronement of a new pontiff, who 
assumed the name of Alexander n. The empress regent 
called a council at Basle, which annulled the election, and 
appointed Cadolus bishop of Parma, a married man, and a 
resolute opponent of compulsory celibacy. This pontiff ad- 
vancing at the head of the Lombard troops to Eome, was 
encountered and repulsed by Godfrey duke of Tuscany. 

The contest was arrested by an unexpected revolution 
in the empire. The elector archbishop of Cologne 
suddenly carried off the young king, and seizing the 
reins of government, declared for Alexander. The 
empress mother finding herself powerless, retired to 
Eome, where she afterwards became the advocate of 
the papacy against her own son. Henry's education 
was neglected, and his morals shamefully corrupted 
under the tutelage of his ecclesiastical guardians. On 
coming of age he scandalised the world by vices which 
neither the graces of his person, nor the indulgence 
accorded to youth, could excuse. The first sovereign 
in Europe was accused of crimes for which there were 



AGGRESSIONS OF THE PAPACY. 



169 



no names in the French or German languages, and which 
could only be paralleled from the Hyes of the Csesars. 1 

Hildebrand well knew how to profit by the evil 
reputation of the crown. After directing the councils 
of five successive pontiffs, he was engaged in the funeral 
solemnities of Alexander, when a cry arose in the 
church, " Hildebrand is pope, St. Peter has chosen 
him." The archdeacon flew to the pulpit and implored 
silence and regularity, but his voice was overborne : he 
was seized and placed on the pontifical seat by accla- 
mations, of which no one doubted the inspiration. 2 
Still, he did not choose to be consecrated without 
royal approval. He even solicited Henry to withhold 
the confirmation from one who was unworthy of the 
charge. The emperor, unfortunately for himself, over- 
ruled his modesty, and Hildebrand, consecrated in the 
presence of his commissioners, was the last pope who 
submitted to that restriction. 

Taking the name of Gregory vn., out of respect to 
his old patron, he plunged at once into the contest, for 
which he had long been preparing. He began by select- 
ing two flagrant abuses for correction, taking care at the 
same time to confound under their names two other things 
perfectly different. This was Gregory's favourite artifice. 
The crimes he condemned were simony and incontinence, 
but under these names he anathematised lay investiture 

1 Aventinus, c. V. Henry was married at an early age, but was only 
restrained by threats of ecclesiastical censure from divorcing his wife in 
two years. His infamous treatment of his second consort was divulged by 
herself at the Council of Placentia, and the rebellion of his son Conrad 
was ascribed to an attempt to implicate him in the crime. 

2 Three modes of election were recognised in the Church. The first 
was by " acclamation," when the electors concurred at once in calling for a 
certain candidate. This was spoken of as an inspiration. The next course 
was by " scrutiny," when each elector balloted for the man of his choice. 
The last was by " compromise," which meant committing the election to a 
delegacy of the different parties. 



170 



HILDEBftAND. 



and the marriage of the clergy. On these two questions 
the great battle of the Church against the State was 
waged. A few words will suffice to explain them. 

In endowing the Church with lands and titles, the 
kings and nobles mostly reserved the patronage of the 
benefices to themselves. Under the feudal system the 
bishops and abbots held their temporalities as fiefs of 
the crown, and all fiefs reverted to the lord on the death 
of the tenant ; the heir had to sue for restitution, and 
to pay a fine on obtaining it. To this burden the 
ecclesiastical fief was liable in common with others; 
and as the successor had no natural claim of inheritance, 
and the promotion was a pure gain, the payment was 
often more than would have been exacted from a tem- 
poral baron. So far as the defence of the crown was 
concerned, one ecclesiastic was as good as another : the 
prince was tempted to think him the best who brought 
the largest bag of gold in his hand. Some payment 
was plainly reasonable, and the burdens of the laity 
would have been largely augmented by the absolute 
exemption of ecclesiastical fiefs. Nor was the mode 
of payment very different from the exaction of fees and 
stamps at the present day. The mischief was that, the 
payments being undefined, a needy or ambitious eccle- 
siastic could outbid his competitors, and then reimburse 
himself by exacting higher sums from the flock. The 
rich preferments (as is too often the case under all 
systems of patronage) fell to the worst candidates, and 
the very sacraments were sold to make up the price. 

So far as the patron was concerned, the obvious remedy 
was to agree upon a fixed composition : with respect 
to the clergy, they should have been absolutely deprived 
of their simoniacal bargains. But neither of those 
reforms answered Hildebrand's object. He pronounced 
all ecclesiastical property to be indissoiubly annexed 



LAY PATRONAGE AND CLERICAL MARRIAGE. 171 

to the spiritual office : all nominations, therefore, were 
spiritual acts, and all payments in respect of them were 
buying and selling the Holy Ghost. He claimed to 
reduce the whole transaction under the canons of the 
Church, — in other words, to transfer the entire patronage 
of the western Church from the State to the spiritual 
authority. This was the motive for stigmatising lay 
investiture as simony. The pope was not insensible 
to the prevalence of the genuine sin ; even the sale of 
orders by the bishops was not uncommon. Gregory 
persuaded himself, however, that these were the fruits of 
lay investiture, and would all disappear if the patronage 
could be wrested from the temporal lord. Consequently, 
when ecclesiastics convicted of simony would resign 
their preferment into his hands, instead of being for 
ever disqualified, they often obtained them again with a 
moderate penance. 

The same wilful confusion of right and wrong charac- 
terised the pope's denunciations of clerical licentiousness. 
His real object was to enforce the practice of celibacy, 
hence the married clergy were confounded with the im- 
moral, and their wives were stigmatised as concubines. 

The theory which exalts virginity above holy wed- 
lock is unquestionably of heathen origin. It is part 
of the doctrine of the inherent evil of matter, common 
to the Greek and oriental philosophies, which considered 
the body the prison of the soul, and all its acts more 
or less a clog upon the spiritual nature. The Gnostic 
Marcion rejected marriage because, holding the world 
and the flesh to be the creation of an inferior malevolent 
deity, he refused to continue a race of slaves for 
his dominion. Marriage was also temporarily dis- 
couraged by the dangers and anxieties inseparable 
from a state of persecution: 1 hence the saints and 

' 1 Cor. vii. 26. 



172 



HILDEBRAim 



martyrs of highest repute were often single. When to 
this was added the increasing reverence paid to the 
Virgin Mary, it is not wonderful that the voice of 
nature and of Scripture yielded to the united force of 
philosophy and superstition. A fanaticism, of which 
even the best of the fathers did not escape the infection, 
prevailed in favour of the really inferior condition. 1 
Forgetting that marriage was the one blessing which 
God added to His own image in man, in the time of 
his innocency, they " vied with each other in exalting 
the transcendant, holy, angelic virtue of virginity.'' 2 

Early in the fourth century, Hosius bishop of Cor- 
dova is said to have bound the Spanish clergy to 
celibacy at the Council of Elvira ; this is open to 
question, and the decree, if enunciated, certainly did not 
prevail in practice. Hosius brought the question for- 
ward again at Mceea, where he was warmly opposed 
by Paphnutius an Egyptian bishop and confessor, who, 
though unmarried himself, maintained the lawfulness 
and sanctity of wedlock, and defeated the proposition. 3 
Among the canons called Apostolical is one of uncertain 
date, which forbids the marriage of bishops, priests, and 
deacons, after ordination^ but the restraint is justified 
as a matter of discipline, and guarded by an express 
caution against deeming marriage impure, since that 
would be to blaspheme God who made them male 
and female. 5 Married men were still freely admitted 
in all ranks of the clergy, and so far from being 

1 This is one of the points on which the marked opposition between 
the Holy Scriptures and the writings of men proves the inspiration of the 
former. 

2 Mil-man's Christianity, iii. 11. 

3 Soc. E. H., i. 11. Baronius and Bellarmine question the truth of 
the historian, but he is confirmed bySozomen (E. H., i. 23) and Suidas 
(In Vit. Paph.). 

4 Can. Apost., xxvi. 5 Ibid, li. 



CANONS FOR CELIBACY. 



173 



required to put away their wives, they were punished 
with deposition if they did so, 1 There was no fur- 
ther alteration of the law, notwithstanding the efforts 
of the ascetics, till the Quinisext Council, when 
a canon was carried, forbidding any one to retain his 
wife after his elevation to the episcopate. The order 
was accompanied by a singular salvo, that nothing was 
intended in derogation of the Apostolical canons. 2 
Henceforth, while the clergy continued to be married 
as before, no one was promoted to the episcopate unless 
he was a widower, or his wife would consent to take 
the vows as a nun. This is still the practice of the 
Greek Church, where the parish priests are required to be 
married, but only widowers or monks are made bishops. 

In the Latin Church, — notwithstanding that St. 
Peter was a married man, and tradition made his wife 
partake of his martyrdom at Eome, — a harsher course 
was pursued. The Council of Aries (340) ordered that 
no married man should be ordained unless his wife 
agreed to separate. Syricius, said to be the first bishop 
of Eome who styled himself pope, enjoined absolute 
celibacy on all priests and deacons : at that time, 
however, thirty was the age for admitting deacons, and 
thirty-five for presbyters. 3 Syricius's letter is the first 
genuine Decretal, and supplies the first canon in the 
Eoman code. The prohibition was repeated by synods 
in Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Germany; it was introduced 
into Britain as part of the Eoman discipline by Augus- 
tine. By Leo the Great (a.d. 440) the yoke of celibacy 
was extended to sub -deacons. Gregory i. was a 
strenuous advocate for its observance, and the pro- 
hibition was now no longer limited to persons un- 
married at the time of ordination, refusing admission to 
married candidates, but holy orders were considered as 

1 Can. Apost,, v. 2 Cone, in Trull., can. xii. 3 Cone, i. p. 689, 



174 



HILDEBRAND. 



effecting a divorce ipso facto. There was no hesitation 
in ordaining married men, bnt in defiance of Christ's 
own words and the primitive canons, they were required 
to put away their wives. 

A regulation so contrary to Scripture, equity, and 
humanity, was not easily carried out in practice. It 
continued rare to marry after ordination, but a large 
number of the parish clergy, and not a few of the 
bishops, married before ordination, refused to put 
away their wives at the call of the new Roman disci- 
pline. These were the offenders against whom Hilde- 
brand levelled his fiercest anathemas. He was less 
severe on the acknowledged pollutions of the votaries 
of celibacy, because these only offended against God, 
and did not defy the Church ; they pretended to a virtue 
if they had it not. The married clergy repudiated the 
virtue itself. They opposed to the papal dictum, the 
laws of Christ and of humanity ; they refused to 
sacrifice the holy estate ordained of God in the time 
of man's innocency to the commands of the Church. 
They declined to qualify as the pope's slaves, by tearing 
out of their hearts the purest ties of nature and religion. 

Against these, Gregory at the head of the whole 
company of monks, clean and unclean, poured out a 
torrent of defamation. Celibacy, which universal ex- 
perience shows to be the parent of abominations un- 
speakable, was extolled as the " angelic life." Marriage 
was pronounced inferior to virginity in all, impossible 
to clergymen. Their wives were branded as concu- 
bines ; the laity were invited to seize them as slaves, 
and to forsake the ministry of their husbands. The 
state which the word of God pronounces " honourable 
in all men," was to Gregory more odious than that 
which the same word declares " God will judge." To 
fornicators and adulterers he held out easy penances 



> 



MONASTIC PROFLIGACY. 



175 



and high promotion; to " the husband of one wife," de- 
gradation, ruin, and excommunication. This crushing 
yoke Hildebrand succeeded in riveting on the neck of 
the Latin Church. The laity applauded the vicarious 
sanctity purchased by other men's wrongs, till the conse- 
quences invaded their own homes in a flood of pollution, 
which swept away the last barriers of law, discipline, 
and decency. 

The most incontestable evidence of the results of 
compulsory celibacy is afforded by the councils of the 
Church which imposed it. A large proportion of their 
acts are devoted to the repression of incontinence ; the 
vices enumerated as of common occurrence can only 
be paralleled, and are not exceeded, by the terrible 
catalogue of heathen pollutions contained in the first 
chapter of the Epistle to the Eomans. Canon after 
canon labours, with halting foot, to overtake the rapid 
march of pollution among the clergy, monks, and 
nuns. Their repeated penalties show the abominations 
with which the law contended in vain. Where such 
enormities could be continuously and increasingly de- 
nounced, smaller sins must have remained undetected 
in the tide of turpitude. This conclusion is not to be 
rebutted by theoretical declamation ; it meets us as 
the practical result of almost every monastic visitation, 
whether conducted by friends or foes. If history has 
established any one principle of human nature more 
surely than another, it is this, — that to bind large classes 
of men and women by vows of celibacy, is not only to 
shut out duties which God Himself has appointed, in the 
constitution of the family and of society, but to ensure 
a frightful amount of perjury and uncleanness. When 
these classes include the national clergy, the very wells 
of morality are poisoned ; the physicians of souls are 
turned into agents of corruption. 



176 



HILDEBRAND. 



To carry out his views, Hildebrand sought to hold 
syuods in every kingdom under the presidency of his 
own legates. The way for this innovation had been 
unconsciously prepared by the archbishops, who, with a 
view of increasing their authority in their respective 
provinces, had accepted the permanent title of legates 
of the Holy see (legati nati). They were disgusted to 
rind themselves superseded by foreigners from Eome, 
- — legates a latere, as they were styled, — who took 
their office out of their hands, and though of inferior 
dignity presided in their councils, as coming directly 
from the side of the pope. Many kings, the English 
especially, refused to admit these interlopers into their 
dominions. The pope then fell back on his council at 
Eome, to which he summoned the bishops on their 
canonical obedience, and so pretended to make laws for 
the churches which they represented, without any 
reference to the laity. The monarchs retaliated by 
prohibiting their bishops from going to Eome without 
royal permission, and from bringing any decrees into 
their dominions without royal approval. 

Six councils were held at Eome during this ponti- 
ficate, in which the papal designs were manifested in 
canons, releasing the bishops and clergy from allegiance 
to their native princes, and binding them to the ex- 
clusive sovereignty of Eome. Gregory maintained that 
the pope was by divine right the universal and para- 
mount lord of the world ; that all monarchs held their 
dominions as fiefs of the Holy see, and the bishops and 
clergy formed the court and officers of the suzerain 
pontiff. This doctrine, he knew, could never be preached 
by a married clergy, whose wives and children are so 
many hostages to the State. Hence his desire for a 
celibate priesthood : men in whom the anxieties of local 
and domestic ties would be swallowed up in the pride of 



controversy on the investiture. 



177 



an imaginary virtue, or the ambition of professional 
advancement. 

In attacking lay investiture, Hildebrand was at- 
tacking the whole political system of Europe. The 
bishops and abbots were secular almost as much as 
ecclesiastical dignitaries. They were endowed with 
vast territorial possessions ; they wielded judicial powers 
affecting life and death ; they sat in the councils of 
State ; in Germany they were princes and electors of 
the empire. No sovereign could allow these important 
dignities to pass from his own nomination, or suffer a 
foreign power to plant irresponsible authorities in his 
realm, and secret enemies in his council. In point of 
form, however, the pope had an advantage, of which 
Hildebrand made the most. It was the custom for the 
lord to enfeoff the new tenant by the delivery of a 
portion or symbol of the fee ; a sod of ground, a wand 
of office, a sword, or a lance, served the purpose. The 
popes invested the dukes of Apulia by the delivery 
of a standard. The ecclesiastical feudatory of the 
empire received in like manner a symbolical inves- 
titure. The pastoral staff of the deceased prelate, 
and the ring which bore his seal and was said 
to wed him to his Church, were sent back by the 
chapter to the king, and by him delivered to the new 
prelate on his appointment. Gregory insisted that 
these were manifestly spiritual, not temporal emblems ; 
they were signs of a power which God had committed 
to the Church, and could not be touched by a layman 
without sacrilege. At the same time, it would be 
sacrilege to rob the sacred symbols of the temporal 
rights which they possessed. The fee was annexed 
to the crosier and ring, and could not be taken away 
from them. He suppressed the fact that the spiritual 
commission was given by ordination, which no prince 

N 



178 



HILDEBE AND . 



or peer attempted to interfere with, and evaded the 
obvious remedy (which was finally resorted to) of 
changing the symbol to a less ambiguous form. He 
was wise enough also not to claim the nominations 
to himself, but to insist on the right of the chapters 
to elect. The chapters were sure to fall, sooner or 
later, under the pope's control, but their intervention 
was a decent blind, which propitiated the nobles who 
had relatives in the electoral colleges. 

It required no small measure of audacity to call 
on the German emperor to surrender his imperial 
rights, at the bidding of the bishop whom he regarded 
as metropolitan and first chaplain of his realm. Nor 
could the demand be sustained for a moment, while 
Germany and Eome retained their original political 
relations. The imperial crown, however, had lost 
much of the splendour that surrounded it on the head 
of Henry in. That monarch had himself failed in 
the ambitious design of reducing the kingdoms of the 
West under his paramount suzerainty, and the long 
minority of his son weakened the authority of the 
crown in Germany itself. The great vassals were im- 
patient of the imperial yoke. The nobles and princes 
were ready for a change, and the prelates, whose 
authority was very great, might be generally counted 
on by the pope. 

The state of Italy also was now very different from 
that which drove the Holy see to seek protection beyond 
the Alps. Defenders had arisen on its own soil, en- 
couraging the pope to act as an independent sovereign. 
The Normans had become a power in Italy. The town 
of Bari in Apulia, having revolted from the Greek 
emperor, placed itself in the protection of the pope and 
the western Augustus ; but receiving no immediate 
succour, the citizens applied to some Norman merce- 



KINGDOM OF THE TWO SICILIES. 179 

narieSj who clianced to be in the neighbourhood, and a 
little army of these hardy adventurers was soon 
collected. These not only expelled the Greeks out of 
the province, but appropriated the territory to them- 
selves, and proclaimed their leader, William of the Iron 
Arm, count of Apulia (1053). Pope Leo ix. venturing 
to dispute his title in the field, was defeated and taken 
prisoner, but the Normans treated him with such respect 
that the pontiff adopted them for his allies, absolved 
them from all his censures, and sent them with his 
blessing to complete the expulsion of the Greeks. 

Six years after, Eobert Guiscard (the Crafty) was 
invested by pope Nicolas n. as "duke of Apulia and 
Calabria, and future duke of Sicily." The pontiff gave 
him a consecrated banner, with the title of champion 
and standard-bearer of holy Church. His conquests, 
corresponding very nearly with the limits of the modern 
kingdom of Naples, were held as a fief of the Church. 
The pope, who had never the slightest claim to bestow 
them, received tribute as paramount suzerain, and his 
pious vassal undertook the defence of his liege lord 
against all his enemies. Robert's younger brother 
Roger carried the Norman arms into Sicily, whence in 
a war of thirty years (1060-90) he expelled both Greeks 
and Saracens, and restored the churches to the Roman 
jurisdiction. Alexander granted him a plenary indul- 
gence (the first instance of the kind) to complete the 
expulsion of the infidels, and sent him a banner from 
the tomb of St. Peter, a favour soon after bestowed on 
his kinsman "William for the conquest of England. 
These principalities, afterwards united into the kingdom 
of the Two Sicilies, formed a bulwark to the Holy see on 
the south, which proved of the greatest advantage in 
its struggles with the empire. 

On the north, the election of Stephen allied the papacy 

1ST 2 



180 



HILDEBRAND. 



with his brother the duke of Tuscany, one of the most 
powerful princes of the age, and Hildebrand lost no 
opportunity of cementing a friendship which inter- 
posed a valuable barrier against the forces of Lom- 
bardy and Germany. 

Thus secure in Italy, the pope had no very for- 
midable adversary abroad. England was in the grasp 
of another Norman power, marching under a banner also 
consecrated by the pope. France was in constant war- 
fare with the great feudatories of Flanders, Gascony, 
and ISTormandy. The crown was further weakened by 
the iniquities with which Philip i. repeatedly provoked 
the censures of the Church. 1 Indeed, the papal pre- 
tensions have always found their surest ally in the vices 
of monarchs. Their profligacy and rapacity, corrupting 
and defying all national law, called for a more stringent 
restraint from abroad. A foreign pastor was welcomed 
when the native prince proved a wolf in the fold. 
Even foreign servitude seemed preferable to a domestic 
tyranny that neither feared God nor regarded man. 
Against such princes the rebuke of the Church was 
sure to be upheld by public opinion. 

Gregory opened his conflict with the German throne 
by renewing a citation, issued in the last days of 
Alexander, for Henry's appearance at the papal tribunal, 
to answer a charge of simony. Incensed at such a 
message, and flushed with his Saxon conquests, the 
king retorted by summoning a council at Worms, which 
deposed the pope. Every crime under the sun was laid 
to his charge — simony, perjury, usurpation, magic, and 

1 Philip was the third in descent from Hugh Capet, count of Paris and 
Orleans, on whom the French estates conferred the crown on the extinc- 
tion of the Carlovingian dynasty in Louis le Faineant (987). Philip was 
excommunicated at the Council of Cleremont (1095), for persisting in 
adultery with the countess of Anjou, whom he forcibly abducted from the 
Church at Tours, though both were married at the time. 



DEPOSITION AND EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE EMPEROR. 181 

invoking the devil. This was the mere spite of party 
spirit : Gregory's personal character was unimpeach- 
able : in fact, two of the bishops who ventured to ask 
for evidence, were roundly told to choose between the 
emperor and his enemy. The bishops of Lombardy 
readily endorsed the German decree; 1 and the king 
sent it to Borne with a letter commanding the pope to 
descend from the chair, of which he was unworthy. 
The documents were delivered with dramatic effect in 
full synod ; but Gregory was prepared. With the con- 
sent of the whole council, he solemnly invoked "blessed 
Peter, prince of the apostles," to depose the king from 
the throne of Germany and Italy for insulting his 
Church with unheard-of pride. The sentence proceeded 
to absolve his subjects from their oath of allegiance, 
and finally excommunicated Henry for despising the 
pope's counsels for his welfare. The impious decree 
was heard and approved by the empress-mother, who 
sat at Gregory's feet, but it took the world outside by 
surprise. 

Excommunication is a privation of religious rites 
intended to bring the sinner to repentance, and mean- 
time to relieve the sacred services from profanation. 
It was pronounced only for offences dangerous to 
the faith or morals of the congregation, and then 
not till after private and public admonition. The 
law of the land might annex other penalties, but the 
Church affected no authority, save over her own 
spiritual offices. To deprive an emperor of his throne 
for disobedience to the pope, was a step without parallel, 
save among those barbarians whom the ban of the 

1 At this very time Gregory was seized and nearly murdered by a 
band of Roman citizens, headed by Cencio, the prefect of the city. It is 
singular that the popes have always been more unpopular in Italy and at 
Rome than in any other country. 



182 



HILDEBRANl). 



Druid subjected to outlawry and death. As for ab- 
solving men from oaths taken to another, it was a thing 
never heard of till the intoxication of papal pride had 
obscured the third Commandment. Henry, indeed, had 
lost the right to complain by invoking the same penalty 
on the king of Castile ; but no such sentence had yet 
been promulgated against a sovereign prince. When 
questioned on that point, Gregory replied that our Lord, 
in granting to St. Peter the power of binding and 
loosing, did not except kings. He quoted the examples 
of Ambrose, who repelled the emperor Theodosius from 
the Church, because his hands were stained with blood, 
and of pope Zachary, who deposed king Childeric. Am- 
brose, however, did but impose a temporary privation, 
which it is to be hoped many a bishop, or inferior mini- 
ster, would repeat to a royal sinner without any design 
on his kingdom. As for Zachary, his conduct was bad 
and treacherous enough, but after all he only gave an 
opinion against the divine right of kings, and left it to 
the French estates to apply it. It was reserved to 
Ilildebrand to extend the spiritual power of binding and 
loosing to the abrogation of temporal rights. His 
sentence proceeded on the doctrine that all authority, 
temporal no less than spiritual, belongs to St. Peter, and 
to the pope as the apostle's representative. Hence, he 
first invoked the apostle to depose the king. Then 
assuming that to be accomplished, he absolved the 
people from an allegiance no longer due; and finally 
having reduced the sovereign to a private person, he 
excommunicated him for contumacy to his pastor. 

This doctrine Hildebrand finally established in the 
Church of Eome, under the name of the Regalia of 
St. Peter. The oath which he framed for its defence is 
still taken by every bishop of that communion. And 
though it has been pretended in this country, for poli- 



ROYALTIES OF ST. PETER. 



183 



tical purposes, that the doctrine is no longer recognised, 
it is still asserted in the public acts of the Church, 
and maintained, both in theory and in practice, by all 
authorities of the Eoman Church. 

In one respect Hildebrand was perfectly right. 
There is no royal road to heaven, no immunity to 
kings from restrictions laid upon other Christians. The 
pope was as much entitled to deprive the emperor of 
his crown, as to exclude the meanest peasant from the 
kingdom of heaven — as much and no more. If St. Peter 
has any cognizance of what is done at Eome, he might 
quite as easily recognise a successor, in the pope who 
taught men not to submit themselves to the king as 
supreme, 1 as in the pope who pretends to close up the 
entrance abundantly ministered by grace, to all who 
make their calling and election sure, into the ever- 
lasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 2 

Not that such curses are simply nugatory; their 
power is terrible, but it is a power of Satan, not of 
God. They operate on the evil, not on the good, in 
human nature, and can bring about their own accom- 
plishment through covetousness or despair. Such was 
the power that smote the emperor Henry iv. The 
papal sentence no sooner reached Germany than the 
ecclesiastical electors formed a league with the princes 
opposed to his rule, and by practising on the super- 
stition and envy of others, compelled the emperor to 
submit his case to a diet, in which the pope should pre- 
side. In the meantime he was required to disband his 
army, and divest himself of the imperial ensigns. It 
appeared indubitable that unless the excommunication 
were removed before the day of assembly, the diet 
would depose him from the throne. 



1 Pet. ii. 13. 



2 2 Pet. i. 10. 



184 



HILDEBRAND. 



In this strait Henry was advised to seek absolution 
from the hand which had proved so powerful to his in- 
jury. Crossing the Alps in the depth of winter with his 
queen and her infant, he arrived a forlorn pilgrim in the 
plains of Lombardy. There the peers and prelates rallied 
round him with all their resources, and offered to carry 
him in arms to the gates of Eome. Henry preferred 
a pacific solution. His messengers sought the fortress 
of Canossa, where Gregory was enjoying the hospitality 
of the countess Matilda, now in possession of her 
government. Eeleased from an unwelcome union by 
the death of her affianced husband, 1 this beau- 
tiful princess devoted herself with all the ardour 
of female enthusiasm to the cause of the papacy. 
Though cousin- german to Henry, she did not hesitate 
to head her troops in the field against him, and all the 
resources of her rich principality were at Gregory's 
command. 

It was not till the "great countess" joined her 
entreaties with those of the messengers, that the pope 
consented to admit the humbled monarch to his presence. 
The favour was accompanied by unheard-of indignities. 
At the outer gate of the castle the king was required to 
part with his attendants, and enter alone. When this 
gate had been shut upon him, he was told at the second 
to exchange his royal attire for a coarse woollen tunic, 
and so was admitted barefooted to the inner court. 
Here he was commanded to wait till his Holiness should 
order the third door to be opened. For three successive 

1 Matilda was the sole child of Boniface marquis of Tuscany. Her 
mother Beatrix was daughter to the emperor Conrad II., grandfather of 
Henry IV. She married in second nuptials Godfrey duke of Lorraine, who 
governed Tuscany in the minority of Matilda. The young countess was 
affianced to his son, but the marriage was never consummated, and she 
afterwards became the wife of Guelph duke of Bavaria. 



HUMILIATION OF THE EMPEROR. 



185 



days the royal penitent stood, shivering and fasting, at 
this entrance from morning to night. Gregory's own 
friends mnrnrared at the severity, and the fonrth day 
the countess's entreaties obtained the king's admission. 

The terms imposed were of a most humiliating 
character. He was to abstain from the royal insignia 
till the assembly of the diet, where the pope would 
finally decide on his deposition. He was to consider 
void the oath of allegiance, which the pope had dis- 
solved, to dismiss his councillors, and promise entire 
submission to the Holy see if he should be restored to 
the crown. These humiliating conditions were signed 
and sworn to by the emperor. The countess with other 
intercessors pledged their oaths and honour for his 
fidelity, and Gregory at last pronounced the absolu- 
tion (January 25, 1077). To confirm the rite, he pro- 
ceeded to celebrate mass ; taking the consecrated wafer 
in his hand, he reminded Henry of the charges brought 
against himself, and solemnly protesting his innocence, 
invoked the Almighty to strike him dead if he were 
guilty. With these words he received the sacrament. 
Then fixing his eyes on Henry, he offered him the other 
part of the same wafer, and dared him to a similar 
exoneration. 

The ordeal was, of course, impossible, after asking 
and obtaining absolution, and the emperor had a more 
secret motive in declining it. He had no sooner re- 
joined the Lombard nobles than he repudiated all 
the conditions, resumed the royal titles, and putting 
himself at the head of the army, effectually prevented 
the pope from going into Germany. The intended diet 
being thus defeated, Henry's enemies assembled and 
chose Eodolph duke of Suabia king. The pope sent 
him the imperial crown, and renewing his sentence 
against Henry, invoked the apostles Peter and Paul to 



186 



HILDEBR AND . 



hurl their vengeance upon him without delay. " May 
God confound him (exclaimed the fanatic) that his 
spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." 

Henry upon his part called a council at Brixen 
in the Tyrol, which, again deposing Gregory, elected 
the archbishop of Eavenna pope, by the name of 
Clement in. Two emperors and two popes now chal- 
lenged the allegiance of Church and State. Wars and 
excommunications raged for twenty years. The rival 
popes alternately chased each other out of Eome, or 
kept possession together, one in the Lateran and the 
other in the castle. The schism extended throughout 
Europe. Every nation was called on to choose its pope, 
and brave the malediction of his rival. If all were ex- 
communicated before God, who were pronounced so by 
His vicegerents, and all who communicated with them 
shared the penalty, the true communion must in many 
places have been reduced to those who never communi- 
cated at all. 

Eodolph fell in battle June 15, 1080. His right 
hand was severed in the action — "That hand," he ex- 
claimed, in his dying moments, " with which I promised 
allegiance to my liege lord." He died laying his broken 
faith to the charge of Gregory. 1 Godfrey of Bouillon, 
the hero of Jerusalem Delivered, was the knight who 
struck the fatal blow. Four years later Gregory was 
driven into the castle of St. Angelo, while Eome after 
two sieges opened her gates to Henry, and he received 
the imperial crown in St. Peter's from the anti-pope 
Clement. The emperor was anticipating the fall of the 
castle and the capture of his inveterate foe, when the 
tables were turned by the arrival of Eobert Guiscard, 
with an army of Normans and Saracens fresh from 
Constantinople. The imperial forces made a precipitate 

1 Leti. 



FLIGHT AND DEATH OF THE POPE. 



187 



retreat, and Gregory, once more enthroned in the 
Lateran, thundered out anathemas of which the frequent 
repetition seems to betray a doubt of their validity. 

The people of Borne paid dear for the release of their 
orthodox pastor. The forces of Robert took out their 
wages in indiscriminate plunder. The city was fired *in 
several places, and by the light of the flames the 
Norman and Moslem auxiliaries of the Church revelled 
in all the horrors of war. Two-thirds of the houses 
were destroyed. Churches, convents, altars, were pro- 
faned, and multitudes carried away to captivity and 
slavery. The Romans may well be pardoned their 
insensibility to the blessings of " Apostolical " rule. 
The pope's champions were no sooner withdrawn than 
the exasperated citizens compelled the pope to follow 
them, t Gregory tied to Salerno, and there died 
May 25, 1085, "repenting," says an author, whose 
wish was father to the thought, " of all his violence, and 
absolving the emperor with his latest breath. 5 ' 1 The 
" Life of Gregory " exhibits a deathbed more in keeping 
with the inflexible and vindictive spirit of one who has 
been called the Czar Peter of the Church. 2 " I absolve 
and bless (he is there reported to have said) all who 
firmly believe that I have such a power, except Henry 
whom they call king, the usurper of the Apostolic see, 
and their chief assistants and councillors." 3 Cherishing 
his animosities to the last, he scrupled not to add, " I 
have loved righteousness and hated iniquity : therefore 
I die in exile." Then telling the bishops and cardinals 
that he was going to heaven, the daring fanatic promised 
to recommend them incessantly to the Almighty favour, 
and so expired. 

Hildebrand died, but his policy survived. As he 
had counselled five popes before himself, he left his 

1 Sigebert, ad an. 1085. 2 Gkdzot. 3 Vit. Greg., c. 110. 



188 



HILDEBRAND. 



mantle to two successors of his own choice, par- 
takers of his thoughts and ready to pursue his ambitious 
designs. 

The first was Victor in., who, in little more than 
a year, fled back to die in the abbey which he had 
reluctantly quitted. Even this brief pontificate was 
long enough to renew the decree against lay inves- 
titure, and to extend it to all Church preferments. Lay 
patronage was accounted a heresy r , and the faithful were 
told that " it was better to be deprived of the visible 
communion and communicate invisibly with God, than 
to be separated from Him by receiving it from a 
heretic." 1 

Otho, who had been Gregory's legate in Germany, 
was the next pope, by the name of Urban n. He is 
famous for his judgment on the guilt of killing the 
excommunicated. When asked what penance should 
be imposed on such homicides, he replied, "They must 
be judged according to their intention. If men, burn- 
ing with zeal for their Catholic mother, happen to kill 
some of her enemies, that is not murder ; nevertheless 
some penance should be enjoined to atone for their 
frailty, in case they had not been actuated by simple 
zeal !" This monstrous doctrine put the crowning stone 
to the papal edifice. The life of an excommunicated 
person might now be taken with impunity, provided 
the murderer could persuade his confessor that he was 
actuated by zeal for holy mother Church. 

The war continued, as might be expected from such 
principles. The German princes elected Herman duke 
of Luxembourg in the place of Eodolph. Gregory 
had encouraged Conrad, the eldest son of Henry, to 
rebel in Italy ; and when death arrested his undutiful 
career (1102), Paschal pursued the same wicked policy 

1 Bower, v. 316. 



IMPRISONMENT AND DEATH OF THE EMPEROR. 189 

with his brother Henry. On taking up arms against 
his father, the prince was immediately absolved from 
the censures incurred by obeying him. After several 
engagements, the lords of the empire endeavoured to 
effect a reconciliation, and a diet was appointed for 
the purpose at Mentz. The prince, afraid of the 
result, repaired to his father in private, and confessing 
his' fault, obtained forgiveness. Then assuring him 
that danger awaited him in the diet, he induced the 
emperor to retire to Bingen ; but no sooner had they 
entered the castle, than the gate was shut, and the 
father found himself prisoner to his son. Being taken 
before the pope's legates at Ingelheim, he was compelled 
to deliver the imperial insignia to the prince. The 
legates told him his crown was forfeited by rebellion 
against the Apostolic see, and his life could only be 
saved by submission. They consecrated the prince 
on the spot, and the whole proceeding was ratified by 
Paschal n. 

The emperor soon after escaped from his dungeon, 
and the war was renewed, but death claimed the 
afEieted monarch at Liege, August 7, 1106, after 
a reign of fifty years, no part of which was free 
from papal persecution. He fought more battles 
than Julius Caesar, and was victorious in sixty-two 
general engagements. After learning wisdom and 
repentance in the school of adversity, he succumbed 
to "the pang that is sharper than a serpent's tooth," 
being deprived of crown, character, and life, by the 
treachery of a thankless child, incited by a wicked 
Church. The ecclesiastics, who had corrupted both 
father and son, were paid in their own coin. Henry v. 
no sooner felt himself safe on the throne, than he 
forswore all his oaths, resumed the investiture, and 
called upon the pope himself to solicit the staff and 



190 



HILDEBR AND . 



ring at his hand, according to the nsage of their 
predecessors from the days of Gregory the Great and 
Charlemagne. 1 

The kings of France and England engaged in 
the same contest, but were more easily subdued. 
Philip, occupied with his disgraceful amours, made 
but a feeble resistance, and soon yielded his aid 
against the emperor. In England there was a sharp 
struggle. "William Eufus succeeded to more than his 
father's vices, with none of the qualities which made 
the Conqueror respected. When at the point of death, 
he importuned Anselm to ease his conscience by accept- 
ing the archbishopric of Canterbury, but having re- 
covered, he drove him out of the kingdom, that he 
might again take possession of the temporalities. The 
sees were notoriously sold by this rapacious tyrant, 
and, to prevent remonstrance and reform, he allowed no 
synods to be convened in his reign. Their suppression 
was perfectly agreeable to the prelates who had bought 
their sees, and were desirous of being left to their 
enjoyment, but Anselm, who cared more for the flock 
than the fleece, was driven like other good men to 
invoke a superior at Home. 

He found pope Urban in the Lateran, and pope 
Clement in the castle. By the former, whom he had 
recognised both as abbot and archbishop, he was wel- 
comed as "pope of the second orb." At the Council 
of Bari (1098), Anselm distinguished himself by the 
learning and eloquence with which he answered the 
Greek objections to the doctrine of the Double Pro- 
cession. The council was on the point of excommuni- 
cating Bufus, when the good archbishop threw himself 
at the pope's feet, and obtained a suspension of the 
sentence. The king used the delay to bribe the court 

1 Bower, v. 378. 



ENGLISH AND FRENCH CONCORDATS. 191 

of Bome, and so kept possession of the archbishop's 
lands till the day of his death. 

Henry i. invited Anselm to return and receive re- 
investiture of his temporalities, but the archbishop 
had been a member of the council at Eome (1099), 
at which all who should give or receive lay investiture 
were pronounced excommunicated. The question had 
never before been mooted in England. Lanfranc and 
Anselm himself had received investiture from the king, 
but the Hildebrand doctrine was now the law of the 
Church, and Henry was menaced with excommunication 
if he refused to obey. He was not strong enough, in king- 
dom or conscience, to despise the censure. He tried to 
bully the pope and then to coax him : there was seldom 
much difficulty in bribing the pope ; but Anselm, 
as an obedient son of the Church of Eome, urged the 
new canon, and the pope told the king he would lose 
his head rather than rescind it. In the end, Henry 
renounced all interference with the election of bishops 
and abbots, leaving the staff and ring to be given 
by the pope as emblems of the spiritual authority. 
On the other hand, Paschal allowed the new prelates 
to do ' homage to the king for their temporalities, so far 
receding from. the Hildebrandine policy, which insisted 
on the exclusive allegiance of the clergy to the pope. 
These terms were ratified by the Council of London, 
1107. 

A similar arrangement was adopted at a later period 
in France; but the emperor stood out longer. He 
offered to relinquish the right of investiture altogether, 
on condition that the prelates should resign the estates 
and temporalities which they held of the empire. 
Strange to say, Paschal accepted the offer, and a treaty 
to this effect was actually concluded and ratified at a 
personal interview in St. Peter's, February 11, 1111. 



192 



HILDEBRAND. 



The pope, however, as might be anticipated, promised 
more than he could perform. The German bishops 
peremptorily refused to relinquish their temporalities. 
In vain Paschal exhorted them to render unto Csesar 
the things which were Caesar's ; they told the pope 
to set the example himself. Meantime, the king de- 
manded to be crowned; and the pope declaring it 
impossible till the treaty was executed, Paschal was 
arrested by the German guards in the church. A 
rescue, attempted by the Eomans, was defeated with 
much slaughter, and Henry left Koine, carrying the pope 
and cardinals in his train, stripped of their pontifical 
ornaments, and threatened with death. The pope was 
obdurate, but the cardinals and nobles who shared his 
danger at last prevailed on him to yield. A bull was 
signed and sealed, granting the king the right to invest 
by staff and ring, provided the bishops were freely 
elected without simony. 

The pope was now set at liberty, and crowned the king 
in St. Peter's ; they took the sacrament together from 
the same wafer ; the pope invoking judgment on which- 
ever should attempt to break the agreement. Yet no 
sooner was the emperor gone, than the cardinals' who 
had escaped imprisonment insisted that all was null and 
void by reason of duresse. A council assembled at the 
Lateran, where the pope's concession was censured as 
heretical, and he was called on to excommunicate the 
emperor for extorting it. Henry having taken the 
precaution to exact an oath from Paschal to the con- 
trary, he refused to perjure himself, and was extricated 
from the dilemma by the curious expedient of excom- 
municating his own bull ; with any other document this 
would be an excommunication of the author, but in the 
present case it only cancelled the bull. Paschal permitted 
his legates, however, to excommunicate the emperor, 



CONTINUANCE OF THE CONTEST WITH HENEY Y. 193 



and even confirmed the acts of the Conncil of Yienne, 
containing the sentence which he refused to pronounce 
himself. At the Lateran Council of 1116 the pope 
publicly confessed his fault in signing the accursed 
writing, and was with some difficulty cleared from its 
heresy. 

The emperor came the next year to demand abso- 
lution at the head of an army. The countess Matilda 
being dead, he took possession of her dominions in 
Lonibardy, without regard to her alleged donation to 
Gregory tii. 1 Paschal retired under the protection 
of the Gorman dukes of Apulia, while the emperor 
entered Borne and persuaded the legate there to crown 
him anew in St. Peter's. For this, Paschal deprived 
and excommunicated the legate. The pope returned 
to Borne on the emperor's departure, and there died, 
resolute in the defence of the supremacy (1118). 

His successor Gelasius, after suffering much personal 
ill usage from the imperialists, narrowly escaped the 
emperor's hands. Henry arriving in Bomo annulled 
his election, and set up the excommunicated legate 
by the name of Gregory vm. ; from him in the 
character of pope he again received the imperial 
crown. Gelasius, driven into France, died at Cluny, 
January 29, 1119. The cardinals who accompanied 
him elected the archbishop of Yienne pope, by the name 
of Calixtus n. He was the emperor's relative, but after 
the failure of some negotiations he excommunicated him 
with bell, book, and candle, in a council at Bheims, the 

1 Matilda carried on the war on behalf of the papacy, with unabated 
ardour, for twenty-five years after Gregory's death. She accepted, at 
Urban's request, Guelph of Bavaria for her second husband, but the 
papacy was her idol to the last. She died at seventy-six years of age 
(1115) when the pope claimed her possessions in virtue of a donation to 
Gregory ; but Tuscany being a fief of the empire, the donation (if it was 
ever made) was clearly void without the emperor's consent. 
I . 



194 



HILDEBRAND. 



same year. Obtaining possession of Eome by the aid of 
the Norman princes, Calixtus confined the anti-pope in 
a monastery, after parading him through the streets in 
derision. 

At last, the long dispute was closed by an agree- 
ment confirmed in a diet at Worms, September 8, 1122, 
and in a General Council held in the Lateran Church, 
a.d. 1123. This concordat consisted of three conditions. 
1. The bishops and abbots of Germany were to be 
elected in the presence of the emperor or his deputy, 
freely and without simony, the legality of the election 
being determined by the crown with the advice of 
the metropolitan. 2. The elect was to do homage for 
the temporalities, and receive investiture from the king 
by the delivery of a sceptre. 3. The crozier and ring 
were reserved to the pope as badges of the spiritual 
authority. 

This arrangement, substantially the same as that 
concluded with England sixteen years before, was re- 
garded as a final settlement of the question. In 
appearance it was a compromise, and even a defeat, of 
the Hildebrandine theory, but the Eoman Church never 
really recedes ; and practically the patronage, which was 
the true question at issue, was transferred from the 
crown to the pope. Free election was a mere cry to 
keep out the king; the pope overruled the chapters 
without scruple and without redress. He was the 
supreme spiritual head ; the metropolitans who were to 
decide on objections were the pope's legates ; at every 
stage there was room for an appeal, and a new election 
could always be compelled by refusing the staff and 
ring. This amounted, as was soon proved, to giving 
the pope the nomination. 

The point where Hildebrand's policy was really 
modified was in permitting the prelates to take an 



CONFLICT OF OATHS. 195 

oath of allegiance to the crown : it is obvious, however, 
that no secular power would submit to their exemp- 
tion, and the papal object was attained by imposing a 
prior oath at consecration to defend the royalties of 
St. Peter. The bishop was the pope's man before he 
became the king's, and the king knew it. In case of 
any conflict between the two allegiances, who can doubt 
which would prevail ? The spiritual was the primary 
and most binding obligation : the pope could dispense 
from the other; but rebellion against the pope, accord- 
ing to the doctrine now universally received, was sepa- 
ration from the fountain of ecclesiastical authority, 
and ipso facto loss of the episcopal function. These 
penalties no earthly monarch could suspend for a 
moment. They were liable to be followed by an 
excommunication which reached beyond the grave 
itself. If a bishop of the Church of Eome can be 
true to his king against the pope, he must be first so 
untrue to his primary and most solemn profession, as 
to render his allegiance to any one an object of greater 
suspicion than ever. 



o 2 



CHAPTEK VIII. 

THE MONKS AND THE CRUSADES. 

Standing Army of the Papacy — Heathen Origin of Monasticism — Transfer 
to Christianity — Egypt — Syria — Rule of St. Basil — Spiritual ineffi- 
ciency — Introduced into the West — Rule of St. Benedict — Reformed 
Benedictine Order — Cluny — Vallombrosa — La Chartreuse — Citeaux — 
Fatal change — Ecclesiastical Ambition — Papal Patronage — Canons 
Regular and Secular — Military Orders — Mendicants — Dominicans — 
Franciscans — Carmelites — Augustinians — Female Orders — Advantages 
— Evils — Crusades — Ruinous results — Gains to the Papacy — Moral 
consequences — Grievous mistake. 

To comprehend the marvellous development of the 
papal power, which is the strangest phenomenon in 
European history, it is necessary to consider the 
peculiar agencies supplied by the circumstances of the 
times. Of these the Monks and the Crusaders may be 
justly considered the most important. The monastic 
Orders have been ever, in the West, the standing 
army of the papacy. They flourished and decayed to- 
gether. Monasticism is one of the institutions imported 
into Christianity out of heathenism. There is no trace of 
it in the Old or New Testament. The widows there men- 
tioned as " serving God with fastings, and prayers night 
and day," 1 were aged women, and mothers of families ; 
they lived neither in cells nor convents, but followed the 
ordinary occupations of their time of life, and worshipped 
in the general assembly of the Church. Similar was the 

1 Comp. Luke ii. 37, 1 Tim. v. 5. 



ORIGIN OF MONASTICISM. 



197 



position of the " consecrated virgins" in the early 
Chnrch. The accounts of the Arian riots of the fourth 
century show that they attended the ordinary place of 
worship, and the age of admission was still the apos- 
tolic threescore. The practice of deserting all the duties 
of life, in order to undertake self-imposed mortifications 
in solitude and contemplation, is of very ancient date in 
the East, where it is still pursued among the Brahmans 
and Buddhists of India, Thibet, and China. The Jews 
probably became acquainted with it during the captivity, 
for before the Christian era they had planted societies of 
this kind in the wildernesses of Syria, under the name of 
Essenes ; and Philo describes others in the Alexandrian 
desert by the name of Therapeutce} 

In the middle of the third century, the Decian 
persecution compelled numbers of Christians to fly to 
the deserts of Upper and Lower Egypt, where they 
hid themselves in caves, and became anchorets, or 
hermits. Some of these continued from choice the life 
first imposed by necessity. After the establishment of 
Christianity under Constantine, the hermits ventured 
out of their cells and gathered into convents (Coeno- 
bia), still apart from the world. The institution of 
these communities is attributed to the famous Anthony, 
the friend of Athanasius ; he was seconded by another 
Egyptian, Pachomius, in the Thebaid. The " new phi- 
losophy," as it was called, was embraced by vast num- 
bers of proselytes, flying from the dangers and corruptions 
of the times, so that, by the end of the fourth century, 
the Egyptian deserts were studded from end to end with 
religious communities. The deserts of Nitria alone con- 
tained 5000 Coenobites, and the total number of anchorets 
and monks was estimated at 76,000 men and 27,700 



» See the Author's Egypt, pp. 97, 111. 



198 



THE MONKS AND THE CRUSADES. 



females. 1 Both forms of monasticism existed also in 
Syria, where they adopted the severer discipline of fast- 
ing, sackcloth, flagellations, iron collars, and other kinds 
of torture. The Egyptian monks were content with 
an abstemious diet, vigils and prayers twice in the 
night. The day was given to manual labour : neither 
soliciting nor accepting alms, they followed the apostolic 
rule of working for their own bread. 2 The monks were 
all laymen, except that when at a distance from a church, 
a priest was appointed to the charge of the community as 
Hegoumenos, or abbot. All were in strict subjection to 
the bishop of the diocese. In this form the institution 
was introduced into Pontus, where the archbishop Basil 
is said to have laid down a "rule" for their uniform 
government, and to have first authorised the vow of 
obedience. Nunneries seem to have been contempo- 
raneous with the male communities, but were neither so 
numerous nor so populous. 

The spread of monachism in the East was greatly 
promoted by the disordered state of society under the 
degenerate successors of Constantine. The corruptions 
of the Byzantine Court rendered the rewards of public 
service the prey of favouritism and intrigue ; its oriental 
despotism extinguished the feelings of patriotism and 
liberty ; while its feebleness left its subjects exposed 
to the worst sufferings of barbarous warfare. It was 
easier to renounce the ties of marriage and paternity, 
than to endure their violent extinction by the sword of 
the spoiler. When the world was full of cruelty and 
lust, the Christian longed for the wings of the dove to 
flee away and be at rest. 

Pious and exalted minds always find refreshment 
and edification in being alone with their God; and 



1 Milman's Christianity, iii. 11. 



2 2 Thess. iii. 10-12. 



SPIRITUAL INEFFICIENCY. 



199 



Christians rejoice to bear the loss of all things for Christ, 
when it is God that afflicts them. He knows how to 
make His discipline instrumental to more grace ; but a 
self-imposed, vain-glorious rule is so far from promoting 
truer conceptions, either of humanity or religion, that 
some of the worst examples of violence and impiety 
issued from these secluded retreats. The swarms of 
ruffians who turned the Council of Ephesus into a den of 
robbers, followed their abbot, Barsumas, from a Syrian 
monastery. The monks of Nitria poured into Alex- 
andria by thousands to fight the battles of Cyril and 
Theophilus, and men of the world were astonished to 
find themselves assailed, with clubs and stones, by re- 
cluses who had abandoned all for God. Their solitary 
contemplations of the Deity resulted in believing Him 
to be altogether such an one as themselves : when told 
that the Creator has not really hands and limbs like a 
man, they burst into tears, and exclaimed — " You have 
taken away our God I" 1 

Neither would the most exemplary monks appear to 
have achieved the mastery of their passions by with- 
drawing from external temptations. The devil, whom 
they dreaded in their fellow- creatures, followed in new 
forms, created out of their own imagination. Their 
bodily austerities seemed to fan, rather than extinguish, 
the flames within. Jerome has left a pitiful picture of 
his sufferings in the deserts of Syria, when, amid fast- 
ing, and squalor, and nakedness, his mind remained 
full of the luxuries and impurities of the city. 2 God 
conquers sin by grace, not by works of righteousness, 
devised of our own counsel. 

Monasticism is supposed to have been introduced 

» Egypt, p. 248 ;> 

2 Hier., ep. xxii. ; see also his Life of Hilarion and the well-known 
legends of Anthony. 



200 



THE MONKS AND THE CRUSADES. 



into the West by the visit of Athanasius to Eome 
(a.d. 341). The monks were always his stannch sup- 
porters in Egypt, and large numbers haying followed 
him to Eome, they dispersed over Italy and Gaul. At 
the end of the century, John Cassian, a monk of Pales- 
tine who had devoted seven years to visiting the 
Egyptian monasteries, retired to Marseilles, and planted 
similar societies on the adjacent shores and islands. 
Islands were preferred from their natural seclusion ; 
those of the Adriatic and Mediterranean were soon 
peopled with monks, till crossing into Carthage and 
Africa, the institution completed the circle to its parent 
soil. 

The western prelates received this importation from 
the East with extraordinary favour. Jerome at Eome, 
Ambrose at Milan, and Martin at Tours, lent it all the 
weight of their great names. Germain earnestly com- 
mended it to the British churches as the best safeguard 
against heresy. Ireland so abounded in monks that it 
was called the island of saints : from its monasteries 
Columba, Aidan, Finan, Colman, and Kilian carried 
the Gospel light to the Caledonian or Albin Scots, the 
Picts, and the Saxons. These labours naturally tended 
to exalt the credit of the single life ; its superiority, 
however, as a general principle, was warmly contested. 
Many of the clergy openly denied that a higher place 
in heaven was promised to virgins than to married men 
and women. They condemned the monkish respect for 
martyrs and their relics, questioned the miracles at 
their tombs, and objected to the pagan practice of light- 
ing lamps before them. They rejected the intercession of 
the saints, and even asserted it was better to keep one's 
goods for the judicious exercise of charity, than to sell all 
and give to the poor, according to the interpretation of 
the monks. These opinions awoke the wrath of Jerome, 



BENEDICTINE RULE. 



201 



whose bodily mortifications never mitigated his bitter 
and uncharitable temper. He overwhelmed the dis- 
sentients with the fiercest invectives, and Jovinian 
and Vigilantius were condemned as heretics 1 for being 
Protestants before the time. 

The rule of St. Basil was universally obeyed till a 
new one, which emanated from the famous Benedict of 
Nursia about the year 529, was generally adopted in 
the West. It differed little from the Egyptian model. 
The divine offices consisted of vigils two hours after 
midnight, and matins at daybreak, besides mental and 
private prayer. Psalms were learnt by heart in the 
intervals : two hours of reading and seven of manual 
labour completed the day. Sunday was devoted exclu- 
sively to reading and prayer. The monks had no private 
property, and all their earnings went into the common 
fund ; they slept in a common dormitory, lighted by a 
lamp, and in the strictest silence. Temperance, not 
fasting or mortification, was the principle of their 
dietary. The abbot was elected by the general voice ; 
he consulted the brethren, but decided for himself. 
Obedience, perseverance, and moral reform were the 
profession made on admission; censure, scourging, 

1 Milman's Christianity, iii. 11. Jovinian was a monk at Milan under 
Ambrose : he quitted his community, but continued to observe the obliga- 
tion of celibacy. Jerome indignantly challenges him to marry at once, 
since he dressed in white like a bridegroom, drank wine, and even indulged 
in bathing and shampooing, preferring a ruddy countenance to the king- 
dom of heaven. The monks always showed a bitter aversion to clean 
linen, and the application of soap and water. Next to a wholesome skin, 
Jovinian's greatest offence was persuading some Roman virgins to marry, 
by asking them if they thought themselves better than Sarah and Hannah. 
He was condemned by St. Ambrose in a synod at Milan (a.d. 390), and 
exiled by the emperor Honorius (a.d. 412) to an island, where he perished. 
Vigilantius revived his heresy in France (a.d. 406), but his sect was soon 
extinguished. " It required no council (observes the historian) to con- 
demn a doctrine so opposed to the tradition of the Church Universal." — 
Fleury, torn. v. p. 278. 



202 THE MONKS AND THE CRUSADES. 

excommunication and expulsion, the penalties incurred 
by its violation. 

The moderation, or the neglect, of this simple rule 
led to a revival by the second St. Benedict, abbot of 
Aniane, in the diocese of Montpellier, at the end of the 
eighth century. Under his regulations, confirmed by the 
Council of Aix-la-Chapelle (a.d. 817), the Benedictine 
Order became the parent of numberless communities 
throughout Europe. The monks of Cluny, 1 Yallom- 
brosa, 2 and La Chartreuse, 3 as well as the Cistercians of 
St. Bernard, 4 were all Benedictines ; but a modification, 
introduced hi the eleventh century, proved fatal to the 
original conception. The disuse of Latin as a vernacular 
tongue, together with its obstinate retention as the 
exclusive language of public worship, placed the repeti- 
tion of the offices beyond the power of every member of 
the community. It was deemed necessary to exempt a 
portion from the demands of manual labour, in order to 
devote them exclusively to this duty. The u brethren 
of the choir" being thus elevated to an ecclesiastical 
character, soon came to consist of priests and candi- 
dates for the priesthood. 5 They appropriated the name 
of monks, while the others, under the appellation of " lay 
brethren," sank to the condition of menials and labourers. 

1 Founded a.d. 910 by William duke of Aquitaine, and perfected by 
the abbot St. Odo. It held the highest rank for nearly two centuries. 

2 Founded a.d. 1040 in the Florentine desert by John of Gualbert, a 
monk of Cluny. 

3 Founded in the mountains of Dauphine a.d. 1084 by St. Bruno, a 
native of Cologne and canon of Rheims. It was bound to the strictest 
silence and a rigid abstinence from flesh. 

4 St. Bernard was born a.d. 1091, and died a.d. 1153. He was a 
monk of Citeaux near Dijon, and at the age of twenty-four founded an 
abbey at Clairvaux, which before his death was the mother of 160 monas- 
teries. He was styled the last of the fathers, and exercised a predominant 
influence in the ecclesiastical affairs of France, Germany, and Italy. 

5 This alteration was first introduced by John of Gualbert at Vallom- 
brosa. 



ECCLESIASTICAL AMBITION. 



203 



This conversion from lay societies to ecclesiastical 
colleges, multiplied the priesthood greatly beyond 
the parochial demand. Some part of the oyerphis 
was available for missionary labours, others devoted 
themselves to the cultivation of letters ; the copying and 
illustrating of manuscripts happily came to occupy some 
of the hours vacated by the disuse of severer toils. Still, 
after these objects were supplied, there remained an 
active and ambitious residue, a prey to other attractions. 
By dispensing with bodily labour, the cloister opened 
its doors to a class of churchmen who were little disposed 
to undertake the obscure duties of a parochial charge. 
The priest-monk, like the modern fellow of a college, could 
enjoy the honours and prizes of the Church without its 
burdens. Power and wealth were open to his aspira- 
tions for his Order, if' not for himself. The confes- 
sional gave him access to the confidence of the great, 
and the means of watching the course of public affairs ; 
he became at once qualified and ambitious to sway 
the destinies of society. Not a few of the world's 
least scrupulous politicians have been trained in 
retreats designed to be sacred to meditation and 
prayer. 

These men were the natural auxiliaries of the papacy. 
To reserve them more exclusively to itself, the Eoman see 
exempted the religious Orders from the diocesan autho- 
rity. They were in every land its own "peculiars," the 
obsequious instruments of its will, and the ready revilers 
of all opponents. The Orders had their own mutual 
rivalries, and waged them with unremitting zeal ; but they 
were always ready to unite for the pope against the law of 
the land and the national clergy who upheld it. As a 
counterpoise to these privileged fraternities, the bishops 
began to incorporate the diocesan clergy into chapters, 
under their own immediate direction ; these assumed the 



204 



THE MONKS AND THE CKUSADES. 



title of Canonici, from the canons or statutes by which 
they were hound, as the monks were termed Regulars, 
from the regula or rule of their profession. The canons 
adopted the name of St. Augustine, from a notion that 
he was the first bishop to live with his clergy in com- 
munity of property. A general constitution was approved 
at the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle, which, being neglected, 
a reform ensued, in which the stricter part adopted 
the distinction of canons regular, leaving the name of 
secular to the rest. The canons regular, by discharging 
several very useful functions in the Church, acquired 
much of the reputation, and no small share of the wealth, 
attained by the monks ; then, imitating their example, 
they obtained papal exemptions, and, without relinquish- 
ing their contest with the older Orders, became enrolled 
in the pontifical army. 

The priestly fraternities were quickly followed by 
the military Orders, instituted on a similar basis during 
the crusades. The Knights of St. John — founded as 
early as the seventh century by John the almoner of | 
Alexandria, and reconstructed by Godfrey of Bouillon I 
for the service of a hospital and chapel at Jerusalem — 
were expanded, for the defence of the Latin kingdom, 
into a threefold Order of military, priestly, and serving 
brethren, all taking the monastic vows of poverty, 
celibacy, and obedience. The Order of the Temple was 
purely military, founded in the year 1118 for the 
extension and defence of the Christian kingdom, and 
the protection of pilgrims from robbers and outlaws. 
These renowned knights, though not priests, were monks, 
and their rule was drawn up by St. Bernard. The 
Teutonic Order, beginning (like that of St. John) in the 
care of the sick and wounded at the siege of Acre, was 
in like manner elevated to military rank, and, returning 
to Germany on the termination of the crusades, em- 



MENDICANT OR PREACHING FRIARS. 205 



ployed itself in the conversion, or more properly speaking 
the conquest, of Prussia. 

The two great mendicant, or preaching, Orders followed 
in the thirteenth century, when the popes ceasing to 
war with the Moslem enemy, turned their arms to the 
subjugation of heresy at home. To the usual monastic 
obligations they added a fourth vow of mendicity, and 
assumed for their special duty the propagation of the 
orthodox faith. The first was founded by St. Dominic, 
a canon regular of Spain : he was closely followed by 
St. Francis of Assisi in Umbria, whose disciples, in 
spite of his express prohibition, obtained a papal privi- 
lege with new interpretations of his rule, in the thirteenth 
century. Though similar in object, these celebrated 
Orders were actuated by the most passionate jealousy of 
each other ; they uniformly espoused opposite sides on 
the open questions of theology. 

The Dominicans were distinguished for their con- 
troversial learning; but, not content with the sword 
of the Spirit, they betook themselves to the material 
weapon. The resistance to papal doctrine in this 
century was so extensive that Gregory ix. empowered 
special commissions, who obtained the odious name 
of Inquisitors, to hunt out the offenders. This com- 
mission was eagerly undertaken by the Dominicans, to 
whom the pope entrusted it a.d. 1233. Beginning 
in Toulouse, they established courts of inquiry where- 
ever they had a convent. The emperor Frederick n., 
St. Louis of France, and other princes were induced to 
sustain their proceedings by the most inhuman penalties. 
The horrible institution spread into every kingdom of 
Europe, imprisoning, torturing, and burning all who 
presumed to think differently from the Holy See, and 
resorting to the most infamous violations of faith and 
honesty in order to convict the suspected. Of this 



206 



THE MONKS AND THE CRUSADES. 



detestable system Eome was the centre and heart, and 
the Dominican monks the unscrupulous executioners. 

The Franciscans, though preachers also, were more 
renowned for their success in the begging trade. In 
spite of their founder's injunctions against the acquisi- 
tion of fixed revenues, they amassed large possessions 
by the dispensation of the Holy See. The example of 
these two Orders led to numberless swarms of holy 
mendicants ; the authorised vagrants, however, were 
limited to the two further Orders of Carmelites, 1 and 
the Hermits of St. Augustine. 2 

These four fraternities enjoyed, by papal decree, the 
privilege of travelling into all countries, instructing the 
young of every rank, confessing penitents, and even 
preaching and administering the sacraments in the 
churches, without regard to the episcopal or parochial 
authorities. The courts and universities, the towns 
and villages of Europe, were filled with swarms of 
friars, among whom the Dominicans and Franciscans 
were everywhere conspicuous. 3 Boasting their great 
superiority to the secular clergy in learning, sanctity, 
and papal favour, they were, in fact, equal or superior 
in ignorance and immorality. The courtiers com- 
plained of their unscrupulous intrigues in the cabinets 
of princes ; the clergy of their interested laxity in the 
confessional. The death-beds of the rich and the 
management of wills seemed to be their special charge. 

1 This Order claims the prophet Elijah for its founder, and the Virgin 
Mary with our Lord Himself for members ! It was really founded in 
Palestine during the twelfth century, and erected into a community by 
the patriarch of Jerusalem a.d. 1205. Being soon after transplanted into 
Europe, it was recognised by Honorius In. a.d. 1226. 

2 Instituted by pope Alexander iv. a.d. 1256. 

3 The Dominicans were called Black Friars, and their name remains 
on the site of their great convent in London, which was granted by the 
lord mayor and aldermen a.d. 1276. The Franciscan Grey Friars settled 
a little earlier where Christ Hospital now stands in ^Newgate Street. 



FEMALE ORDERS. 



207 



The secrets of domestic life were in their power. A 
profession of the profonndest humility wielded the 
terrors of the Inquisition, and yows of perfect poverty 
culminated in the possession of enormous estates. There 
is but too much proof that the " angelical" obligation of 
chastity was not more consistently observed. 

Communities of female recluses appear to have been 
coeval, in most countries, with those of the other sex. 
Their institution in the West is ascribed to Marcella, 
a noble Eoman widow, who became acquainted with 
Jerome during his visit to Eome (a.d. 382), and died 
shortly after the capture of the city by the Goths. The 
original nuns, like the monks, were strictly bound to 
manual labour, the needle and the distaff supplying the 
place of severer tools. These occupations relieved the 
monotony and strain of religious offices, which press 
with greater weight on the female mind than the male. 
At first, there were no vows ; the nun was at liberty 
to quit the community and marry without scandal. 
Basil, Ambrose, and Augustine vehemently protested 
against such departures from what was fanatically deemed 
a state of higher purity. The Council of Chalcedon 
subjected them to the penalty of excommunication ; still 
the bishop might show mercy if he thought fit, and the 
marriage would appear to stand good. 1 The necessity 
for such a canon proves the offence to be not unusual. 
Innocent i. (a.d. 407) made the crime inexpiable in 
nuns who had actually taken the veil ; and subsequent 
ages, reverting to the example of heathen Eome, subjected 
their frail vestals to imprisonment, tortures, and death. 

The Benedictine Nuns were founded by Scholastica, 
the sister of the saint, and in conformity to his rule. 

1 Cone. Chal., Can. xvi. By the fifteenth canon, the same penalty is 
! imposed on Deaconesses who marry : these were not then admitted under 
forty years of age. 



208 THE MONKS AND THE CRUSADES. 

Gregory the Great reports that Eome contained in his 
time three thousand of these " handmaidens of God." 1 
"When coarser labours came to be despised, the nuns 
were preserved from idleness by the tasks of embroider- 
ing ecclesiastical vestments, copying and illuminating 
manuscripts, and attending to the culinary and domestic 
wants of the society. In process of time, they came, 
like the monks, to affect an ecclesiastical character. 
The abbess ruled her nock and bestowed her blessing 
like a bishop. She attended councils and subscribed 
decrees. It was found necessary to forbid the reverend 
mothers (a.d. 813) from consecrating, ordaining, and per- 
forming other sacerdotal functions. 

Canonesses followed in imitation of canons, and 
"Nuns of the Hospital " were contemporary with the 
knights. Catherine of Sienna, a zealous disciple of 
Dominic, founded an Order of female mendicants. St. 
Brigida, a Swedish princess, drew up a rule (pretended 
to be dictated by Christ Himself in one of her 
numerous visions) for a double convent of monks 
and nuns, which was confirmed by pope Urban v. 
a.d. 1360. By strictly imposing manual labour on both 
orders, she endeavoured to revive the ancient spirit 
from which monachism had so lamentably degenerated. 
But no female Order achieved so valuable a ministry as 
the TJrsuline Nuns, organised in the sixteenth century 
by Angela di Brescia and Ursula, of Naples. Without 
the bond of any community, free from vows, and retain- 
ing their family relations, these pious sisters devoted 
themselves, for Christ's sake, to nursing the sick, re- 
lieving the poor, and comforting the mourners. 

Of every Order the earliest members were undoubtedly 
the best. The first monks reclaimed waste lands, cleared 



i Ep. vi. 23. 



ADVANTAGES OF THE CLOISTER. 



209 



and cultivated the soil, preached the Gospel in the rural 
districts, civilised the population, and instructed the 
ignorant. Their labours added fire and earnestness to 
their prayers, while their prayers daily stimulated and 
sanctified new exertions. A similar spirit actuated the 
founders of each succeeding institution ; but the as- 
sumption of the priestly character, and the patronage 
of the Holy See, involved all in the corruptions and 
superstitions of the day. Eelics, miracles, saint worship, 
penances, purgatory, found their most zealous adherents 
among the idle inmates of the cloister. Luxury, envy, 
malice, and uncleanness followed in natural sequence. 
The rise of each new Order proclaimed the degeneracy 
of the older ones, but the downward tendency was 
universal and inevitable. 

Still, it is not to be doubted that many wounded souls 
found healing and strength in the seclusion of the 
cloister. To females it afforded that shelter in times of 
violence, which is still panted for in an age of covet- 
ousness. Nor were its advantages restricted to the 
inmates. Inestimable blessings were imparted to the 
sick and penitent by the ministry of pious monks, whose 
connection with the labouring classes gave them access 
to sympathies not so readily reached by the established 
clergy. Ignorance and poverty found relief at the 
monasteries to the last. Signal also were their services 
in the cause of literature. By preserving and copying 
the manuscripts of earlier times, the monks and nuns 
prevented the extinction of learning in the fall of the 
empire : we are indebted to them for the Holy Scrip- 
tures themselves, as well as the earliest commentaries 
of the uninspired writers. The Benedictine edition of 
the Fathers is one of the noblest monuments of literary 
industry. 

It may be questioned whether the monasteries could 

p 



210 



THE MONKS AND THE CRUSADES. 



have maintained these claims to respect, during the 
altered circumstances of succeeding ages, had they 
seriously made the attempt; but the whole scope and 
spirit of the original institution was changed by the 
alliance with Eome. The papal exemptions substituted 
a lax and distant visitor for the diocesan control strictly 
enjoined by the Fourth General Council. 1 Their reli- 
gious privileges tempted them to a lucrative trade in 
consciences, and the wealth so acquired was dissipated 
in luxury and vice. Their morals were corrupted by 
indulgences, and their faith by a blind reliance on 
the pope. The epithets hurled at the mendicants by an 
angry Benedictine, might be applied to the generality 
of religious Orders. They were "the pope's beadles 
and tax-gatherers, blind leaders of the blind." 2 When 
the grand imposture of indulgences came to inflict the 
last outrage on the conscience of Christendom, it was the 
monks who undertook the sale and shared the commis- 
sion. The papal alliance was as fatal to their patriotism 
and honour as to their piety. In every independent 
kingdom a monastery was always an enemy's outpost, 
quartered on its resources and eating up its strength, 
till the time arrived for its subjugation, and the trumpet 
sounded for the attack. 

While the monastic Orders were thus subduing 
western Christendom to the pope, the Crusades ex- 
hibited him at the head of its temporal forces, uniting 
its princes, and directing its armies in the cause of 
religion. By promising forgiveness of sins to all who 
assumed the cross, and at the same time opening to 
more worldly adventurers a tempting prospect of riches 
and power, the popes induced all classes, from the 
monarch to the peasant, to embark in these romantic 
but barbarous expeditions. " There was no nation so 

> Cone. Chal., Can. iv. » Matt. Paris, 1246-7. 



FAILURE OF THE CRUSADES. 



211 



remote, no people so retired, that did not respond to the 
papal appeal. It inspired not the continent only, but 
the most distant and say age islands. The Welshman 
left his hunting, the Scotch his fellowship with vermin, 
the Dane his drinking bouts, the Norwegian his raw 
fish." 1 "It is the will of God," exclaimed the multi- 
tudes, excited by the oratory of pope Urban at the 
Council of Clermont (a.d. 1095): the pontiff accepted 
the omen, and made it the battle-cry of the crusaders. 
It was a French council, and Urban was the first 
Frenchman who ascended the throne of St. Peter. The 
spirit of that chivalrous nation presided over the in- 
ception : yet none of the sovereigns of Europe risked 
his person or his reputation till the establishment of 
the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem had created a political 
interest out of the religious one. 

The ruinous results of these expeditions on the 
Eastern Church have been noticed in another publica- 
tion. 2 The cross was planted on Mount Zion amidst 
horrors hardly paralleled since the conquest of Titus. 
More than a million of crusaders, not to mention in- 
fidels, perished in the first sanguinary effort. The 
second, in spite of the prophecies of St. Bernard, and 
the exploits of the two greatest monarchs of Europe, 3 
dwindled in two years to a miserable handful, which 
returned utterly dispirited, a.d. 1149. Saladin recovered 
the holy sepulchre amid the feuds of the Templars and 
Hospitallers, a.d. 1187. The third crusade, though 
illustrated by the prowess of the emperor Frederick 
Barbarossa, and our own lion-hearted Bichard, only 
wrested a truce, which the sagacious Moslem would 
have accorded to a peaceful negotiation ; the fourth was 
diverted to the plunder of Constantinople; the fifth 

1 Malmsbury, p. 416. 2 Egypt, chap. xvii. 

3 The emperor Conrad ni. and Louis VII. of France. 

p 2 



212 



THE MONKS AND THE CKUSADES. 



sayed its feeble remnant by an inglorious evacuation of 
Egypt; the sixth and seventh displayed the chivalry 
of St. Louis at the cost, first of his liberty and then of 
his life. The result of the whole was to precipitate the 
fall of Christianity in the East, and establish Moham- 
medanism on its ruins. 

In the "West, the crusades exhausted the finest 
kingdoms of men and money; the social fabric of 
Europe was shaken to the foundation ; its fairest pro- 
vinces were devastated by the march of disorderly armies, 
and two millions of its hardiest population perished in 
the field and the sea. The papacy was the only gainer 
by these tremendous sacrifices. The red cross was a 
papal badge ; — princes, prelates, knights, and soldiers 
carried it to the holy war, while the pope and the 
monks at home profited by their absence, and disposed 
of the spoil. It was the Crusades which indoctrinated 
Christendom with the Mohammedan notion of gaining 
heaven by fighting for religion instead of practising it. 
The defence of the Church, which at 'Borne means the 
temporal power of the pope, was recognised as a 
just cause for taking up arms in the name of Christ. 
The European kingdoms submitted to pay taxes to the 
Apostolic see for the prosecution of the holy war. The 
" Saladine tenth," imposed by Innocent in. (a.d. 1198) 
for this service, was the foundation of the tribute after- 
wards levied from all ecclesiastical benefices by papal 
authority. The treasury of Eome was filled, while its 
spiritual ambition was gratified by insulting and invading 
the Eastern Church. 

The monks and the clergy participated in the ag- 
grandisement of their chief, but religion, morals, and 
society could only suffer from the example and effects of 
the crusades. They were the occasion of the " plenary 
indulgences," by which the pope dispensed with the last 



FUNDAMENTAL ERROR. 



213 



shadows of spiritual discipline, and granted forgiveness 
of sins in exchange for military service or money pay- 
ments. The profligacy of the crusading armies, mingling 
the vices of the East "with those of the West, brought in 
a tide of unspeakable abominations on the populations of 
Europe. Their barbarism tended to hinder, rather than 
(as some have imagined) to assist in the flow of letters. 
Their cruelties to heathen enemies, perpetrated under 
the sanction of religion, nourished the spirit of persecu- 
tion ; and if their swords opened new markets to the 
traders of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, the gains of a few 
Italian republics formed but a poor compensation for the 
evil inflicted on the liberties, the property, the popula- 
tion, and the piety of Europe. 1 

Both Monks and Crusades were the outgrowth of 
one grievous mistake, which is still the cardinal error 
of Eome and the papacy. Both proceeded on the 
melancholy notion that heaven is to be won by 
" service " instead of faith. Many a wounded spirit 
sought by their means to conquer for itself " with strong 
crying and tears " a righteousness which might hide the 
pollution of former sins. Their eyes were blinded to the 
blessed truth, that Christ has borne all our sins in His 
own body on the tree, and that it needs only to accept 
His finished work by faith, to taste in His righteousness 
a peace and love, through the Holy Ghost shed abroad 
in the heart, which no work or service of our own can 
either deserve or impart. 

1 Milman's Christianity. 



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CHAPTEK IX. 



THE MEDIEVAL PAPACY. 

Sovereignty of the Pope — New Dogmas — Lateran Councils — Discovery of 
the Pandects — Civil and Canon Law — The Decretals — Three Faculties 
— Revolution at Rome — Temporal Power denied — Arnold of Brescia 
—Adrian IV., Conquest of Ireland — Islands, the Right of St. Peter — 
Humiliation of the Emperor Barbarossa — Persecution of the Albi- 
genses and Waldenses — Cardinals, sole Electors to the Papacy — 
Submission of the City — Scotland removed from Province of York 
— Despotism of Innocent in. — Langton, archbishop of Canterbury 
— Resistance of the King — Interdict — Surrender of the Crown — 
Infamy of John — Persecution — Quarrel with Emperor Frederick n. — 
Guelphs and Ghibellines — War in Germany and Italy — French Con- 
quest of Sicily — Death of Conradin — Council of Lyons — Extension 
of States of the Church — Sicilian Vespers — Spanish Succession — 
Jubilee — Bulls of Boniface vni. — His Arrest and Death. 

So long as the name of St. Peter was used to assert only 
the spiritual primacy of the West, it received the sup- 
port, more than the opposition, of the temporal powers. 
Charlemagne saw the political advantage of subjecting 
the ecclesiastics of his wide dominion to the see from 
which he took his imperial title, and which he regarded 
as the first fief of the empire. The other princes were 
glad to possess an appeal, from the intractable zeal of 
their own clergy, to a pontiff more accessible to con- 
siderations of State. To subject the priest to the 
bishop, the bishop to the metropolitan, and the metro- 
politan to the pope, appeared to that age the best 
security against an authority which claimed to speak 
with a higher sanction than its own. From a similar 
motive , the laity were shortsighted enough to help the 
papacy to impose the yoke of celibacy on the clergy. 
They liked the idea of achieving a holiness, of which all 
might participate, by mortifications not intended to affect 



> 



SOVEREIGNTY OF THE POPE. 



217 



themselves. It was an age of vicarious merits, and the 
people gladly laid on their priests a burden which they 
would not touch with one of their own fingers. No 
sooner, however, were the clergy reduced to the will of 
the papacy, than the laity discovered they had put a 
sword into its hand for the destruction of their own 
liberties. The arguments, which had been admitted 
against bishops and metropolitans, were equally effectual 
against peers and princes. God had not given one law 
for the shepherd and another for the flock. In com- 
mitting the keys of His kingdom to St. Peter, Christ 
made no exception for royalty ; there was one door for 
all classes of men, and whoever would enter in must 
submit to the same authorised guidance. 

Nor was the argument without an agency well 
qualified to enforce it. By yielding up the ecclesias- 
tical body to the absolute authority of the pope, the 
temporal powers had provided him with an army for 
their own subjugation. An enslaved, denationalised 
clergy, naturally turned against political rights in which 
they had no part. They adhered to the chief who 
alone could promote them to honour ; they were ready 
to fulminate his censures in every kingdom and private 
house ; they would suspend their ministrations, and 
refuse even to pray, for a people upon whom the pope 
for any cause, personal, political, or superstitious, should 
lay his sovereign interdict. 

In such a state of society, it required more political 
science than the age was possessed of, to prevent the 
spiritual primacy from culminating in universal sove- 
reignty. But as if to destroy the last chance of inde- 
pendence, the several rulers were always invoking the 
papal sanction in their aggressions on one another. The 
pope's consecrated banner was eagerly unfurled against 
a neighbour : his authority was questioned, but too 



218 



THE MEDIAEVAL PAPACY. 



late, when it was turned against his accomplices in the 
robbery. There was not a monarch in Europe, not even 
the Church's vassal-king of Sicily, who would bear to 
be told that he held his crown by the favour of the 
pope; yet there was hardly one who was not ready 
to accept his neighbour's crown at the pope's hand, 
and so endorse the most extravagant of Hildebrand's 
pretensions. 

The summit of this ambitious policy was reached in 
the long pontificate of Innocent in. The intervening 
century witnessed the final sanction of the two most 
cherished of papal dogmas — trans-substantiation 1 and the 
celibacy of the clergy. The spread of monasticism, and 
the departure of the crusades which Gregory desired to 
conduct in person, were its most prominent features. 
It was further distinguished by the assembly of those 
large councils in the Lateran, to which the Latin Church 
gives the appellation of General, and by which the papal 
system was perfected in the West. The first of these, 
called the Ninth General Council, was held under pope 
Calixtus ii., a.d. 1123 ; the second by Innocent n., a.d. 
1139 ; and the third by Alexander m., a.d. 1179. The 
canons of all were steadily directed to the aggrandise- 
ment of the ecclesiastical, and the suppression of lay, 
usurpations. They continued the struggle against simony 

1 The dogma promulgated by Radbertus, after making silent progress 
during the tenth century, was vigorously assailed by Berenger archdeacon 
of Angers (a.d. 1045). He was condemned in a council at Rome 
(a.d. 1050), and again at Tours, where Hildebrand presided as legate 
(a.d. 1055). Still he adhered to his positions, and Gregory (a.d. 1078) ac- 
cepted his subscription to the Real Presence without insisting on the change 
of substance. This may possibly explain the charge of perjury brought 
against him for his repeated retractations ; his opponents confounded two 
propositions together, of which Berenger could abjure one and retain the 
other. The Romish tenet was finally enjoined by the Council of Placentia 
(a.d. 1094). The practice of administering the eucharist in one species 
is said to have been introduced by the crusaders from the East. 



CIVIL AND CANON LAW. 



219 



and the marriage of the clergy, and they betrayed, at 
the same time, the rapid progress of corruption by 
repeated enactments against the vices inseparable from 
compulsory celibacy. 

The same period furnished the two great Codes of 
law which contributed so powerfully to rivet the papal 
ascendancy. The original manuscript of the Pandects 
of Justinian was discovered at Amalfi, on the capture 
of that city by the emperor Lotharius n., a.d. 1137. 
Colleges were immediately erected for its study in 
Italy, and the Salic, Lombard, and Burgundian codes, 
which previously prevailed, yielded to the superior merit 
of the Roman civil law. The popes immediately per- 
ceived the necessity of a similar code for the Church. 
The ancient canons, more or less arbitrarily inserted in 
the Eoman collection, were continually modified, en- 
larged, and abrogated by decretal epistles, issued by the 
several popes for the instruction of their clergy, or in 
answer to questions referred to their judgment. These 
confused and discordant utterances were digested into a 
code, on the model of Justinian's, by Gratian, a monk 
of Bologna, and published by pope Eugenius in. (a.d. 
1151) for the guidance of the ecclesiastical courts. The 
author termed his work a " concordance of discordant 
canons;" it was, in fact, a subjugation of the ancient 
canons to the decrees of the papacy. Not only were the 
pope's letters treated as of equal force with the canons 
of General Councils, but ancient authorities were unscru- 
pulously falsified for their support. 

The Decretal, as the new code was termed, was 
henceforth the sole standard of canon law under the 
papacy. 1 To encourage its study, Eugenius instituted 

1 A supplement to Gratian, published A.D. 1191, was called the Book of 
ExtravagantSj or things not comprised in the Decretal. Innocent in. 
authorised a revised edition distinguished as the Roman Collection. The 



220 



THE MEDLZEVAL PAPACY. 



the degrees of bachelor, licentiate, and doctor. The 
civil law was constituted into a separate faculty with 
similar degrees, and a third was introduced soon after 
at the University of Paris, by Peter Lombard, for the 
study of theology. As Gratian collected the canons, 
Peter undertook to compile the theological dogmas (sen- 
tent ice) of the orthodox fathers ; hence he was called 
Master of the sentences, and his work was made the text- 
book of the faculty of divinity. 1 

These institutions added strength and dignity to the 
papacy, by constituting it the bulwark of learning and 
civilisation no less than of religion. The public mind 
became accustomed to hear the apostolic see spoken 
of as the fountain of jurisdiction and honours, and 
monarchs vied with one another in an abject respect to 
the Holy Father. It excited scarcely any sensation when 
Alexander in. put in exercise the audacious conception 
of Hildebrand, by conferring the title of King on the 
Duke of Portugal, who had previously subjected his 
dominions to the Eoman see. 2 

While thus ascending to empire abroad, the pontifical 
throne was but insecurely planted at home. What- 
ever may be thought of priestly and patriarchal govern- 
ment by those who contemplate it at a distance, it 
appears to be universally detested by all who experience 
its tender mercies. The Eoman citizens, once proud of 
their bishop, cooled in their devotion as he became a 
monarch. While Hildebrand was threatening princes 
with excommunication, his person was not safe in his 

whole was again revised and distributed into five books under Gregory ix. 
Boniface viii. added a sixth book, and this was followed by the Clemen- 
tines (a.d. 1371) and the Extravagants of subsequent pontiffs. 

1 Bower, vi. 69. 

2 Alphonso i. was really saluted king by his army after defeating the 
Saracens, a.d. 1136. Baronius says he had made himself tributary to 
pope Lucius n. (1114.) Alexander's bull treats him as a vassal. 



REVOLUTION AT ROME. 



221 



own city, unless surrounded by Norman mercenaries. 
In the thirty years that followed the death of Calixtus, 
the papal chair was ascended by six pontiffs, and 
always shaken by schism and sedition. Honorius, 
venturing to oppose his powerful vassal, Eoger count 
of Sicily, in taking possession of his deceased ne- 
phew's duchy of Apulia, was defeated in the field, and 
compelled to admit his title. At his death (a.d. 1130), 
a schism ensued by the election of two popes, of whom 
Innocent n. finally prevailed. He was opposed, how- 
ever, by the Eomans, and driven into France, while the 
great Count of Italy sided with his rival, who erected 
his dominions into a kingdom (a.d. 1130). It was 
not till 1139 that Innocent, though receiving the 
support of the emperor, was left supreme by the death 
of the anti-pope, and enabled to hold the Second Lateran 
Council. After that he was taken prisoner by Eoger, 
and obliged to acknowledge his kingdom, while the 
close of his life was hastened by a popular insurrection 
at Eome. 

The citizens refused to obey any longer the 
temporal rule of the pope. The senate was re-estab- 
lished " and created magistrates ; they even invited the 
emperor to take possession of his ancient capital. On 
the election of Lucius n. (a.d. 1144), the Eomans, 
acknowledging him only as bishop, assembled in the 
capitol, and created a prince, with the ancient title of 
Patrician. The senate seized the public revenues, and 
issued edicts in the old republican style. The pope, 
attempting force, was repulsed, and killed in the affray. 
His successor, Eugenius in., not being permitted to be 
consecrated in Eome without surrendering the temporal 
power, fled out of the city by night, and though restored 
by the help of the Tiburtines, 1 who were always at feud 

1 The inhabitants of Tivoli, the ancient Tibur. 



222 



THE MEDIEVAL PAPACY. 



with, the Bomans, was again driven into France. Once 
more reinstated by the king of Sicily, the pope was 
again ejected the following year (a.d. 1149), at the in- 
stigation of the famous monk, Arnold of Brescia, who 
had been, for more than ten years, preaching against 
the temporal power of the clergy. This reformer being 
condemned in the Second Lateran Council, retreated 
into Switzerland, but was thence invited by the patriotic 
party to Borne. Incited by his ardent declamations, the 
revolt was renewed on the accession of Adrian iv. (a.d. 
1155). In the commotions which ensued, a cardinal 
was dangerously wounded, whereupon the pope (the 
only Englishman that ever attained that title) instantly 
placed the city under an interdict. Superstition proved 
stronger than liberty ; the Bomans returned to the feet 
of their Holy Father, and purchased his blessing by ex- 
pelling the patriots. Arnold fell into the hands of the 
emperor Frederic Barbarossa, who delivered him up to 
the pope, and he was burnt alive, in the presence of 
a careless, ungrateful people. 

In just return for his subserviency, this haughty 
pope made the emperor hold his stirrup, like a groom, 
when he mounted his horse, to honour his vassal with 
the crown of Charlemagne. Adrian has left a further 
proof of the extravagance of the papal pretensions, in a 
letter to the sovereign of his native land authorising the 
conquest of Ireland. The language is so characteristic 
of the superstition of the times, that we insert it 
entire : — 

" Adrian, servant of the servants of God, to his 
son in Christ Jesus, Henry, king of England, sends 
greeting and apostolical benediction. The desire your 
magnificence expresses to advance the glory of your 
name on earth, and to obtain in heaven the prize of 
eternal happiness, deserves, no doubt, great commen- 



CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 



223 



elation. As a good Catholic prince, yon are very carefnl 
to enlarge the borders of the Church, to spread the 
knowledge of the trnth among the barbarous and 
ignorant, and to pluck up vice by the roots in the field 
of the Lord ; and in order to this you apply to us for 
countenance and direction. We are confident, therefore, 
that by the blessing of the Almighty, your undertaking 
will be crowned with a success suitable to the noble 
motive which impels you, for whatever is taken in hand 
from a principle of faith and religion never fails to 
succeed. It is certain, as you yourself acknowledge, 
that Ireland, as well as all other islands which have the 
happiness to be enlightened by the Sun of Eighteousness, 
and have submitted to the doctrines of Christianity, are 
unquestionably St. Peter's right, and belong to the 
jurisdiction of the Roman Church. "We judge, there- 
fore, after maturely considering the enterprise you 
propose to us, that it will be proper to settle in that 
island colonies of the faithful, who may be well pleasing 
to God. You have advertised us, most dear son in 
Christ, of your design of an expedition into Ireland, to 
subject the island to just laws, and to root out vice 
which has long flourished there. You promise to pay 
us out of every house a yearly acknowledgment of one 
penny, and to maintain the rights of the Church without 
the least detriment or diminution. Upon which promise, 
giving a ready ear to your request, we consent and allow 
that you make a descent in that island, to enlarge the 
bounds of the Church, to check the progress of im- 
morality, to reform the manners of the natives, and to 
promote the growth of virtue and the Christian religion. 
We exhort you to do whatever you think proper to 
advance the honour of God and the salvation of the 
people, whom we charge to submit to your jurisdiction, 
and own you for their sovereign lord : provided always, 



224 



THE MEDIAEVAL PAPACY. 



that the rights of the Church are inviolably preserved 
and the Peter pence duly paid. If, therefore, you think 
fit to put your design in execution, labour above all 
things to improve the islanders in virtue. Use your 
own endeavours, and those of such as you judge worthy 
to be employed in the work, that the Church of God be 
enriched more and more, that religion flourish in the 
country, and that the things which make for God's 
honour and the salvation of souls be so disposed as to 
entitle you to an eternal reward in heaven and an 
immortal fame upon earth." 1 

It would be interesting to know whence the doctrine 
originated, which was often repeated by the popes, that 
islands are the peculiar property of St. Peter, who in all 
probability never crossed any sea but the lake in which 
he was so nearly drowned. 2 Perhaps it came from their 
being the favoured abode of monks ; but the language 
of this bull is little complimentary to the monasteries of 
the Isle of Saints. Eapin observes that the immorality 
of the natives consisted in not acknowledging the Papal 
authority. The Holy Father certainly entertained a 
curious notion of " justice to Ireland" when he committed 
her to the tender mercies of Strongbow. He showed 
an equal want of sympathy for the cry of " Ireland for 
the Irish," when he proposed to enlarge the borders of 
the Church by levying Peter's pence from every house, 
by means of English colonies armed with their formid- 
able cross-bows. The way in which the pope jumbles up 

1 Gir. Cam. Anno 1154. M. Paris, 35 ; Raping History of England. 

2 Urban n. gave the island of Corsica to the bishop of Pisa, a.d. 1091. 
Clement VI. exercised the same prerogative by creating the earl of Cler- 
mont king of the " Fortunate Islands," discovered in his pontificate, but 
the war between France and England prevented the new king from ever 
reaching his dominions. The Spaniards having re-discovered the islands, 
and re-christened them the Canaries — from the dogs with which they 
abounded — pope John xxn. gave the sceptre to Alphonso. 



CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 



225 



earthly glory and heavenly rewards, — the enriching of the 
Church with the progress of religion, — indicates the dead- 
ness to spiritnal religion which forms the most painful 
feature of the Papacy. The Irish were, at this time, 
better educated, 1 quite as good Christians, and probably 
more moral, than the English. The audacity of the 
bishop, who could pretend to promote their salvation by 
subjecting them to the tyranny of the perfidious and licen- 
tious Henry, is only to be matched by the credulity of the 
Irish, who now lavish their allegiance on this very see of 
Eome, and charge all their wrongs on Protestant England. 

A double election ensued on Adrian's death, which 
entailed further humiliation on the emperor Barbarossa. 
After calling a council to decide the question, putting 
the rival candidate in possession of Eome, and employing 
his forces in Italy to support his pretensions, he was 
compelled to abandon his cause and make a humiliating 
peace with Alexander in., who treated him from the 
first with contempt. The pope boasted that God had 
enabled an nnarmed priest to triumph over the Emperor 
of the West ; but the princes of this age forged their 
own chains, and the emperor was not the only one who 
tasted the bitterness of humiliation. The same pontiff 
avenged the murder of Thomas-k-Becket on the despot 
who incited it. The pope only did his duty as a Chris- 
tian bishop in denouncing the crime, while the king 
received far less than his due in the flagellations of 
the brawny monks. It was England, whose crown the 
Norman dishonoured, which suffered the indignity. 2 

1 In the seventh and eighth centuries the Saxons flocked to Ireland as 
the great mart of learning and religion (Bed. iii. 7 and 27), and though the 
island had been since desolated by Northumbrians, Danes, and " Eastmen " 
from Germany, the people could hardly have fallen below the level of the 
English, nor were their petty kings so barbarous as the Norman barons. 

2 No one can read the words that Hume allows to have been spoken, 
without perceiving that Henry suggested, and was understood to suggest, 

Q 



226 



THE MEDIJEVAL TAPACY. 



Alexander convened the Third Lateran Council, 
memorable for inaugurating the persecution against the 
Albigenses, who inhabited the province south of Prance, 
and joined their neighbours, the Waldenses, in re- 
jecting the authority of the Church of Borne. 1 This 
independence was so intolerable, that these two 
appellations have become general names for heretics in 
the papal church, and the most monstrous errors are 
indiscriminately charged upon them. The true Wal- 
denses were orthodox Christians, if the Holy Scriptures 
be the standard and rule of Christian faith. Their 
offences — in papal eyes unpardonable — were the denial of 
the pope's supremacy, auricular confession, and purgatory, 
and the total rejection of indulgences and masses for 
the dead. It was not unnatural that in the recoil from 
the gross corruptions of the dominant church, they 
should attempt a return to primitive practices under 
circumstances little suited to their revival; but though 
mistaken in supposing that Christian ministers are 
invariably bound to support themselves by manual 
labour, and that all warfare, capital punishments, self- 
defence, and even civil lawsuits, are forbidden to the 
followers of Christ, their errors called for other argu- 

the assassination of Becket. Of course, his subsequent orders " carne too 
late !" His majesty selected a fitting advocate with the pope when he 
sent a bishop, who went by the appellation of " John, the liar of Oxford." 

1 The Albigenses took their name from Albi, a diocese in upper 
Languedoc. The Waldenses or Vaudois inherited the valleys (vaax) of 
Piedmont, and probably took their name from that circumstance. Mos- 
heim, however, distinguishes these peasants from the true Waldenses, 
deriving the latter name from Peter Waldus, a merchant of Lyons, who, 
about a.d. 1160, employed a priest to translate the four Gospels and other 
scriptures (Ecc. Hist. xii.). His followers were called "poor men of Lyons," 
and Sabbatati or Insabbatati, from wearing the wooden shoes (sabuts) of 
the poorest class. There were probably many sects of these early Protes- 
tants, having no other standard of faith and worship but the New Testa- 
ment, hence the papists charged them with rejecting the Old Testament. 



STRUGGLES AT ROME. 



227 



merits than fire and sword. The stedfastness of their 
faith in the Gospel of Christ, and the purity of their 
lives, triumphed over all the malice of their persecutors, 
and these despised sects survived to witness the re- 
formation of which they were the early precursors. 

In the Third Lateran Council the right of voting 
in the election of the pope was first restricted to the 
cardinals. The regulation was designed to guard 
against the tumults and divisions attending the suffrages 
of the clergy and people, and was so efficacious that 
only one double election occurred in the course of the 
six subsequent centimes. By the excluded majority , 
however, the innovation was so resented that Lucius m., 
the first pope chosen by the cardinals, was obliged to 
retire to Yeletri for his consecration. 

The degenerate Bomans had not utterly lost the 
memory of their ancestors. The senate still claimed the 
civil government of the internal City, alleging the pope to 
be only its spiritual chief. The limiting his election to a 
few ecclesiastics naturally increased their discontent. The 
pope was often absent from Rome, and as the cardinals 
repaired to the place where he died, in order to elect a 
successor, the citizens found themselves, both in Church 
and State, at the mercy of a foreign junta. It was not 
till the accession of Clement m. (a.d. 1188), who, being 
a native of Borne, was enabled to bring his refractory 
fellow- citizens to terms, that an accommodation was 
arrived at. It was then agreed that the sovereignty 
should reside in the pope ; the office of patrician was 
abolished, and a prefect appointed with definite powers. 
The senators were to be elected annually, with the pope's 
approval, and take an oath of allegiance to him. St. 
Peter's church and revenues were restored to the See, 
but the pope agreed to spend a third of the tolls and 
public revenues on the walls and other common uses of 

q 2 



228 



THE MEDIAEVAL PAPACY. 



the city. The citizens further insisted on the destruc- 
tion of the walls of Tuscnlnm, a pontifical stronghold 
which had often inflicted severe punishment on the 
Eonians. 

It was this pope who released the kingdom of Scot- 
land from its dependence on the Church of England, by 
exempting it* from the jurisdiction of the archbishop of 
York, and subjecting it immediately to the Holy See. 
His successor, Celestine m., was implored to draw the 
sword of St. Peter on behalf of the gallant Cceur de Lion, 
whom the duke of Austria kept in captivity ; but the 
royal crusader was not an ecclesiastic, and the pope left 
him to his fate till the kingdom had raised 100,000 
marks for his release. Then he excommunicated the 
duke for taking the money. 

The policy of Hildebrand was already in the zenith, 
when the cardinal deacon Lotharius ascended the papal 
chair at the early age of thirty-seven, and took the name 
of Innocent m. He began his reign by requiring the oath 
of allegiance from the prefect and senate as absolute sove- 
reign, without any reservation for the emperor. Next he 
recovered the cities called the "patrimony of St. Peter," 
from the marquis of Ancona, seneschal of the empire. 
The crown of Sicily having devolved on a minor, the 
pope accepted the guardianship, but seized the oppor- 
tunity to deprive his ward of the ecclesiastical preroga- 
tives granted by his predecessors. He compelled the 
duke of Suevia, as heir to the emperor Henry v., to 
repay the ransom unjustly extorted from Richard Cceur 
de Lion. 1 He further decided a triple candidature for 
the crown of Germany in favour of Otho (a.d. 1200), 
but afterwards deposing and excommunicating him, he 
transferred the empire to his own ward, Frederick king 



1 Bower, vi. 187. 



GRANDEUR OF THE SEE. 



229 



of Sicily, and the electors humbly accepted the nomina- 
tion. France he placed under an interdict the next 
year, and by this means compelled the king to receive 
his wife, whom he had unlawfully divorced. The king 
of Armenia sent to implore his protection against the 
Latin princes and knights in the east. Bulgaria and 
Walla chia, having thrown off the Greek dominion, soli- 
cited a crown and a pall from the Eoman pontiff. The 
king of Arragon came to be crowned, and swore allegi- 
ance to the pontifical see as a tributary. Constantinople 
itself fell to the Latin arms, and Innocent confirmed a 
Latin patriarch in the primacy of the east. 

To these triumphs he added the effectual humilia- 
tion of the kingdom always most impatient of the papal 
aggressions. Adrian was the only Englishman who 
ever ascended the pontifical throne, and Innocent 
was the only pope who ever trampled on the English 
crown. His spirit was shown in his inaugural sermon, 
" Ye see what manner of servant that is whom the 
Lord hath set over His people, no other than the 
vicegerent of Christ, the successor of Peter. He stands 
in the midst between God and man ; below God, above 
man; less than God, more than man. He judges all, 
is judged by none, for it is written, I will judge." 1 
Gregory vn. could not have spoken more arrogantly; 
but England, at least, had never yet known the extent 
of these claims. 

It was reserved to the basest of our sovereigns to 
exemplify the Hildebrandine policy in its maturity, and 
the indignant censures of our historians show how 
bitterly the nation felt the disgrace. On the death of 
Hubert Walter, archbishop of Canterbury (a.d. 1205), 
the chapter duly elected John de Gray, bishop of 



1 Hook's " Lives of Abps. of Canterbury," ii. 666. 



230 



THE MEDIAEVAL PAPACY. 



Norwich, to the vacant see. The election was confirmed 
by the king, and the temporalities were restored to the 
new archbishop. On applying to the pope for his pall, 
he was met by a counter-election, clandestinely made 
by a few monks before the issue of the conge cVelire, and 
afterwards abandoned by themselves. The pope had no 
difficulty in dismissing the pretender ; but, instead of 
acknowledging the true archbishop, he seized the oppor- 
tunity to intrude his own nominee. He commanded the 
monks, who attended in support of De Gray, to proceed 
to a new election in his presence. In vain they repre- 
sented that they were not the chapter, and had no 
license from the king. The pope commanded them on 
their obedience, and under penalty of immediate excom- 
munication, to choose an archbishop, whom he would 
name. Against the laws of England, the canons of the 
Church, and the reclamations of the pretended electors, 
Innocent forced through a fictitious election of Stephen 
Langton, his fellow-student at Paris, whom he had 
brought to Rome and created a cardinal priest. This 
daring aggression he communicated with a few con- 
temptuous explanations to John, and on receiving for 
reply that the king would die before he submitted to 
such a supercession of his sovereignty, Innocent auda- 
ciously consecrated his nominee to the English primacy 
at Yiterbo (a.d. 1207). 

The king enforcing the sentence of the law on the 
monks who elected him, the pope retorted by putting 
the whole kingdom under an interdict. By this senseless 
piece of wickedness, the man who claimed obedience in 
right of a spiritual office, forbad all spiritual ministra- 
tions. The vicegerent of Him who came to seek and to 
save, punished a whole nation for the contumacy of the 
king, and punished them by exclusion from rites which 
he believed essential to the salvation of their souls. 



SEEEEXEEE OE THE EXGLISH CROWN. 



231 



This judge of men sentenced (as he supposed) many 
millions of souls to perdition, because another person 
refused to allow a particular ecclesiastic to minister 
the gospel of salvation in a particular place. In 
fact, it was an ecclesiastical strike; and, as in other 
strikes, the agents were directed by a distant head for 
'lis own purposes, and the adversary vras to be reduced 
by the sufferings of innocent parties. It is difficult to 
believe that a pope can have any faith in religious rites 
which he thus abuses. 

The interdict yras proclaimed 23rd ^larch, 1208 : the 
papal clergy ceased to minister, and the king banished 
the recusants, sequestering the property assigned for 
the duty. The good sense of the English nation sus- 
tained the shock better than the pope had anticipated. 
The king was respected for his spirit, and it was 
observed that his only two successful campaigns took 
place while the kingdom was under the pope's curse. 
Innocent next relaxed the severity of the interdict, and 
excommunicated the king instead ; an experiment which 
the people may have reasonably thought should have 
come first. Finally, he deposed John for his immorali- 
ties, and gave the vacant throne to the king of France, 
together with a plenary remission of his sins. 

It is to be hoped that Philip found the latter gift 
more easy to realise than the former. When he invaded 
England, the bear, whose spoils he proposed to appropriate, 
declined to be captured. An army of sixty thousand men 
rallied to the national standard. ILoreover, the pope had 
his agent already treating for a different solution. J ohn 
could have expelled the French, but a wicked conscience 
exposed him to the terrors of superstition. Caring too 
little for religion to be affected by the suspension of its 
rites, he cared enough for himself to be frightened at a 
prophecy which portended his defeat or death. He sent 



232 



THE MEDIEVAL PAPACY. 



for Pandulph the legate, surrendered his crown into his 
hands, and did homage as a vassal to the pope, engaging 
to pay a tribute of one thousand marks a year. The legate 
kept the crown in his possession five days, and then 
restored it as a signal favour from the Holy See. 
Langton entered upon his primacy in triumph; the 
king fell at his feet and was absolved. They walked 
together into the cathedral at Canterbury, and, after an 
intermission of six years, the Holy Sacrament was again 
ministered in the archiepiscopal church. 1 

John Lackland was now a "good Catholic." Pandulph 
reported to Innocent that he had never seen a character 
so humble, so moderate, so endowed with every ex- 
cellence ; 2 but from that day to this, J ohn Lackland has 
been a name of infamy to the English nation. His 
subjects were never so willing to surrender him to the 
French, as when Philip, outwitted and baffled by the 
pope, was compelled to withdraw from his enterprise. 
In the reign of Edward in. the whole proceeding was 
examined in parliament ; when it was unanimously re- 
solved that John had no power to subject the kingdom 
to the pope, without the consent of the nation, and the 
prelates, peers, and commons pledged themselves to 
uphold the crown against the pontiff's demand of the 
illegal tribute. 

Inflated by this unprecedented triumph, Innocent 
resolved to tread out the last embers of resistance by 
proclaiming a crusade against the unfortunate Albigenses. 
An army of five hundred thousand men was let loose, 
under the banner of the cross, to carry fire and sword 

1 The interdict, it seems, still continued, and the archbishop was 
reprimanded for disregarding it. He had the further mortification of 
finding himself subject to the legate, who, though only a sub -deacon, 
overruled all his decisions, and would not suffer him to carry his cross 
in his presence. — Hook's "Archbishops of Canterbury." 

2 Ibid. 



> 



FOURTH LATERAN COUNCIL. 



233 



among these inoffensive Christians. The counts of 
Toulouse, Foix, Comminges, and Beam, though good 
Catholics themselves, were severely treated for refusing 
their assistance to massacre their subjects. Threescore 
thousand persons were sacrificed to the fury of these 
wretches ; yet they received the full approbation of four 
hundred bishops, and the ambassadors of all the Christian 
princes, at the Fourth Lateran Council ! 

Innocent took the chair of this Council as Sovereign, 
at last, of east and west. The ambassador of the Latin 
emperor of Constantinople, with the Latin patriarchs in- 
truded into the eastern sees, were present to attest the 
universality of his sway. The canons are said to have 
been all written by himself, no one venturing to oppose or 
criticise his draft. He first established both the word 
and the doctrine of trans-substantiation : others required 
all princes to swear to extirpate heretics, and to be 
excommunicated by their bishops if they refused the 
oath. The deposing power of the pope was recognised. 
The privileges enjoyed by crusaders against the Saracens 
were extended to all who served against heretics. 
Auricular confession was enjoined, once a year at least, 
on pain of exclusion from church offices and Christian 
burial. The barons of England were excommunicated en 
masse for persecuting the exemplary John, now a crusader 
and vassal of the Holy Eoman Church, and Stephen Lang- 
ton, the pope's own friend and nominee, was suspended 
for assisting them. 1 Neither prelates nor peers, however, 
wavered in their purpose, till, in spite of pope and kings, 
the great charter had secured the liberties of England. 

1 Langton, though so tyrannically intruded, proved a true patriot, 
resisting pontiff and king with equal courage in the cause of his country. 
He was the chief agent in obtaining Magna Charta ; though produced as an 
old charter of Henry I., it was probably drawn up by the archbishop 
himself. 



234 



THE MEDIAEVAL PAPACY. 



Innocent died at Perugia 16th July 1216, renowned 
for his learning as a civilian and a divine, but more 
memorable as completing the once hopeless conception 
of the monk Hildebrand. In the sway which he held 
over the greatest monarchs, there seemed to be some 
ground for the words which the popes blasphemously 
applied to themselves, — "He setteth up one andputteth 
down another." 

His successors followed diligently in the same path. 
Honorius in. condescended to accept the little Isle of 
Man, and grant investiture to its petty prince as a 
feudatory of the Apostolic See (a.d. 1219). Before 
placing the imperial crown on the head of Frederick n., 
he obliged him to resign all the claims of the empire 
upon Spoleto and Tuscany, and further to take the 
cross in the Holy Land. Gregory ix. excommuni- 
cated the emperor for delaying the fulfilment of 
this vow, and when he embarked, pursued him with 
censures that alienated the Latin knights and prelates 
from his side. Frederick accomplished more than any 
other prince since Godfrey of Luuillon, by making a 
treaty with the Sultan which secured free access to 
the Holy Places ; yet on his entering J erusalem the 
churches were interdicted by the patriarch, and not 
even a German bishop would anoint the accursed of the 
pope. The emperor took the crown from the altar, and 
placed it on his head with his own hand. 1 

Eeturning to Italy, he found himself excommunicated 
anew, and his territories overrun by an army of rebels, 
under the command of a papal legate, styled the 
Militia of Christ. This was the beginning of the 

1 Frederick claimed the crown in right of his second wife Yolande, 
daughter and heiress of John de Brienne, the last king of Jerusalem : 
hence the union of that title with the crown of Sicily, his hereditary 
kingdom. 



GUELPHS AND GHIBELLINES. 



235 



factions which so long desolated Italy nnder the appella- 
tion of Guelphs and Ghibellines. The former was the 
name of a duke of Bavaria who contested the empire 
with Conrad hi., and afterwards took part against him 
in the dispute between Innocent n. and his rival 
Anacletus. The partisans of the pope adopted it as 
their war-cry, while the imperialists took the watch- 
word of Ghibellines from a town in Suabia, where the 
same emperor (or his son) was born. 1 These party names 
were revived by the adherents of Gregory and Frederick, 
and taken up by the local factions of every state 
and city, till all Italy was split into two parties strug- 
gling for the mastery, with as little consciousness of 
the original quarrel as the Tories and Whigs of oin* own 
country. 

Xothing could exceed the fury of the Eoman court 
against the emperor Frederick, who, though the ward of 
a pope, exhibited the strongest determination to recover 
the rights of the empire. He was excommunicated four 
or five times ; a crusade was proclaimed against him, 
but with no other effect than to embitter and extend 
the hostilities. The imperial troops conquered Milan, 
Sardinia, TJrbino, and Tuscany, and laid siege to Borne 
itself (1240). Gregory summoned a General Council to 
enforce his anathema, but Frederick defeated the project 
by capturing the Genoese fleet with a large number of 
bishops on board, and consigning them to prison or 
death. This disaster proved fatal to the pope, and the 
vacancy occasioned by his death could not be filled till 
the emperor released some of the captured cardinals to 

1 The Italians, despising the barbarous language of Germany, found 
another derivation for the Guelphs in " guarclatori della /<?," " defenders of 
the faith," and for the Ghibellines in " guida bellicct" "a strife -maker." 
Others say that Guelph and Ghibel were names of two brothers who took 
opposite sides in the wars of Gregory and Frederic. 



236 



THE MEDIEVAL PAPACY. 



constitute a conclave. He was rewarded by the elevation 
of an intimate friend, the Ghibelline cardinal Fieschi; 
but Innocent iv. had no sooner assumed the tiara 
than he became a different man. He demanded the 
emperor's unconditional submission to the church, with 
the immediate release of his ecclesiastical prisoners. 
Failing in this, he retreated into France, and at the 
Council of Lyons (a.d. 1245), again pronounced sentence 
of excommunication and deposition against Frederick. 
The proffered mediation of St. Louis the French king- 
was rejected, and the pope haughtily enjoined the 
German electors to fill the vacant throne. The new 
king chosen on his recommendation fell in battle ; and 
Frederick, supported by most of the lay princes, reta- 
liated on the clergy and monks throughout his domi- 
nions. Universal war raged in Germany and Italy. 
The pope offered Sicily to any Catholic prince who 
would expel the church's enemy. Eichard earl of 
Cornwall, Charles of Anjou, and Edmund the English 
king's son, successively bid for the prize. The pope 
made an attempt to reserve the crown to himself, but 
his army was defeated by Frederick's son Manfred, and 
Innocent followed the emperor to the grave a.d. 1254. 

Frederick left his hereditary kingdom to Conradin 
his infant grandson ; Manfred, who had possessed himself 
of Calabria and Apulia, being nominated regent. On a 
false report of the infant's death, Manfred ascended the 
throne, but being defeated in a decisive engagement 
with Charles of Anjou, the kingdom submitted to the 
conqueror (1266). The French rule soon becoming 
intolerable, the Sicilian lords recalled Conradin, whom 
Alexander iv. had excluded from the empire, by 
threatening to excommunicate any elector who should 
vote for him. This ill-fated prince, falling into the 
hands of the French, was inhumanly beheaded in the 



COUNCIL OF LYONS. 



237 



market-place at Naples : he threw his glove from 
the scaffold, entreating whoever shonld pick it up to 
carry it to his cousin Constantia, queen of Arragon. 
The Spaniards, he knew, might be trusted to avenge 
his wrongs. 

This judicial murder has been laid at the door of the 
pope, Clement iv. But he had died some months before, 
leaving one of the most respectable names in the ponti- 
fical succession. The dissensions among the cardinals 
kept the See vacant three years, and it was not till 
the magistrates of Yiterbo had locked them up in the 
bishop's hall, and even taken off the roof and stopped 
the supply of food, that Gregory x. was elected. He 
presided at the great Council of Lyons (a.d. 1273), 
called to unite the Greek and Latin churches. The 
submission of the emperor Michael Palaaologus, and the 
letters he produced from the Greek bishops, were 
accepted as a happy reunion. But the letters were 
forgeries, executed with a view to political aid, and the 
churches remained as opposed as ever. In this council 
the regulations were adopted for expediting the election 
of a successor to the Holy See, which, with some 
modifications, are still in force. The cardinals present 
with any pope at his death, are to wait ten days for 
others, and then be shut up in a common room, with a 
cell for each, under the guard of the magistrates till the 
election is declared. A cardinal arriving before the 
election may be admitted into the conclave, and allowed 
to vote, even if under sentence of excommunication, but 
no one once admitted can retire, except for sickness, and 
no absent cardinal can vote. ~No election is effected, 
save by a concurrence of two-thirds of the votes. 1 

Gregory exerted himself with great energy to put 



1 By the constitution of Gregory x., the cardinals were to be attended 



238 



THE MEDIAEVAL PAPACY. 



an end to the factions of Guelphs and Ghibellines. 
The city of Florence, where party spirit ran highest, 
he placed under an interdict ; bnt it was not till after a 
long and bloody war between the republics of Lucca and 
Pisa, that Innocent v. was enabled to proclaim the ex- 
tinction of the feud. Even then the spirit of faction 
was not dead, and the party names continued to recur in 
connection with the disputes of the day. 

These contests were attended by no inconsiderable 
addition to the papal revenues. The first great aug- 
mentation was in the pontificate of Innocent in. To 
obtain his countenance against Otho, Frederick n. con- 
firmed the long-disputed donation of the countess 
Matilda of Tuscany, and further allowed the count of 
Fundi, in Naples, to bequeath his entire possessions to 
the Eoman See. The imperial crown was stripped of 
Eomagna and Bologna by Nicholas in., who exacted 
their concession, or as the pope called it their restitu- 
tion, from Eudolf of Hapsburgh. These acquisitions 
carried the papal territory to its widest extent, for 
Nicholas was disappointed in the attempt he meditated 
on the crown of Sicily. Charles of Anjou, who had 
been created Eoman senator and vicar of the Church 
States, was further honoured by John xxi. with the 
titular crown of Jerusalem. Nicholas abolished the 
vicariate (transferring the administration of Tuscany to 
the emperor), and obliging Charles to relinquish the 
senatorial dignity, conferred it on himself for life. He 
would gladly have done the same with the crown of 
Sicily, but death removed him before the conspiracy, 
into which he had entered, had time to effect its design. 

only by one servant each, and if the election were delayed beyond three 
days, to be allowed no more than one dish apiece for dinner, and one for 
supper ; after a fortnight their diet was to be reduced to bread and water, 
with a little wine ; but these rigorous injunctionp are now relaxed. 



THE SICILIAN VESPERS. 



239 



The author of this famous treason was John of 
Procida, a Sicilian nobleman, who had been banished 
the island for his fidelity to the house of Suabia. 
Repairing to Pedro m., king of Arragon, he offered 
to restore his wife Constantia to the throne of her 
ancestors. Money to equip a fleet was obtained from 
the emperor of Constantinople, who hoped by this means 
to divert Charles from an expedition he was contem- 
plating against himself. Pedro put out to sea on 
pretence of attacking the Saracens in Africa, ac- 
cepting a contribution from Charles himself for that 
laudable purpose. Meantime John, passing through 
Sicily in disguise, enlisted the chief lords in his design. 
The conspiracy was favoured by the king's absence in 
attendance on the pope. On Easter-day 1282, as the 
bells began to ring for vespers, the Sicilians rose on the 
French in every part of the island, and massacred them 
without respect to sex or age. Priests, friars, and 
monks, slaughtered their own brethren, and so effec- 
tually was the bloody policy carried out, that eight 
thousand French perished in the space of two hours. 
The king and queen of Arragon, who were waiting for 
the intelligence, quickly appeared with their fleet, and 
were received and crowned with unanimous applause. 

Pope Martin, who was a friend of the French, and 
had reappointed Charles to the senator ship, no sooner re- 
ceived intelligence of these ''Sicilian Vespers" (as the 
inhuman deed was called), than he excommunicated the 
conspirators and their abettors, and laid an interdict on 
the dominions of the Spanish king. Curses and inter- 
dicts, however, had become too frequent to preserve 
their terror. Pedro maintained his claim in right of his 
wife, and the private investiture of Nicholas. After 
much mutual reviling, the two kings agreed to decide 
the quarrel by single combat at Bordeaux, and the 



240 



THE MEDIAEVAL PAPACY. 



French historians represent their hero as actually ap- 
pearing in the lists with a hundred knights, vainly 
calling for the recreant Spaniard. The truth is, the 
pope forbad the ridiculous combat, and Edward I. 
refused to permit it at Bordeaux. 1 Pedro, paying no 
attention to the papal censure, was formally deposed 
from the throne of Arragon by a bull, dated 22nd 
March 1283, in which the pope absolved his subjects 
from their allegiance, and offered his dominions to 
any prince that would seize them. The impracticable 
monarch laughed at the sentence by writing himself in 
derision, " Pedro, a gentleman of Arragon, father of two 
kings and lord of the sea." The bull was treated with 
equal contempt by the Spaniards. Charles died of grief, 
leaving his son, the prince of Salerno, a prisoner, and 
Martin followed him, before he could proclaim a general 
crusade against the invader of the apostolic fief. Pedro, 
having enjoyed his two crowns to the day of his death, 
left them to his sons, Alphonso and James respectively, 
and both were excommunicated by Honorius iv. for their 
accession. 

The prince of Salerno, obtaining his release by the 
mediation of Edward of England, was absolved by 
Nicholas iv. from the conditions to which he had sworn, 
and crowned at Eome king of Apulia (i.e. Naples) and 
Sicily, a.d. 1289. His hopes of regaining the island 
were constantly disappointed. James, having succeeded 
to the crown of Arragon by the death of Alphonso, 
was persuaded to resign Sicily to Charles on condition 
of receiving his daughter in marriage, with an ample 
dowry. Boniface viii. also graciously gave him leave 
to conquer the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, from 
the republics of Pisa and Genoa. The Sicilians, how- 



1 Bower, vi. 320. 



INSTITUTION OF THE JUBILEE. 



241 



ever, declining to be so bartered, bestowed their crown on 
James's brother Frederic ; and though James contributed 
his fleet to reduce him, he retained the island throne, 
while Charles and the pope were obliged to rest content 
with the continental kingdom. Their only satisfaction 
was to persist in calling Naples by the name of Sicily, 
and to stigmatise their rival as king of Trinacria. 

Boniface viii. was a man of so much learning, that 
Petrarch extols him as the wonder of the world. His craft 
and cruelty, however, were shown in his treatment of 
Celestine v., whom he first persuaded to resign the ponti- 
ficate, five months after his election, on account of his 
inexperience in politics ; and then, having succeeded to 
the chair, instead of letting the good man return to the 
cloister for which he panted, he kept him in confinement 
to the day of his death. His resentment of the opposi- 
tion of the two cardinals Colonna to his election, was so 
bitter, that not content with degrading them, he decreed 
the whole family — one of the most illustrious in Eome — 
to be for ever infamous, and incapable of ecclesiastical 
dignities. He pulled down their town of Prameste, and 
ordered the site to be sown with salt to extinguish it, 
like Carthage, for ever. 

This pontificate is famous for the institution of 
the Jubilee, though, according to some accounts, it 
was established a century before by Innocent m. 
By a bull dated 22nd February 1300, Boniface 
granted a plenary remission of sins to all who before 
Christmas, in that and every subsequent hundredth year, 
should visit the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul 
daily, for thirty days if inhabitants of Eome, and for 
half that time if strangers. His private enemies the 
Colonnas, Frederic of Sicily, who had neglected to pay 
his tribute, and the abettors of the Saracens were the 
only persons excluded. The city was crowded with 

R 



242 



THE MEDIEVAL PAPACY. 



strangers, who flocked to gain the indulgence ; enormous 
sums were offered at the holy tombs ; and the solemnity 
became so profitable that Clement vi. reduced the period 
for its observance from a hundred years to fifty, and later 
popes haye brought it down to twenty-five. 

Boniface appeared at the jubilee with the spiritual 
and temporal swords carried before him, the bearers of 
which proclaimed the text, — " Behold, here are two 
swords." 1 This irreverent parody on the words of 
St. Peter, appeared still earlier on the seal of an English 
confederation for the expulsion of the foreign eccle- 
siastics, in the reign of Henry in., and a bitter jest it 
then proved to the pope's beneficiaries. 

The pope had the pleasure of receiving a more 
respectful recognition from the barons of Scotland. 
Finding themselves hard pressed by the arms of 
Edward i., they resolved to accept a distant, in pre- 
ference to a neighbouring, master ; accordingly, they 
tendered the kingdom to the pope, pretending that, 
from the most ancient times, Scotland had been a fief 
of the holy Eoman See. Boniface, eagerly embracing the 
offer, commanded the archbishop of Canterbury to 
require the king to withdraw his troops, and submit his 
pretensions to the apostolic tribunal. Edward gravely 
replied, that in the time of the prophet Samuel, Brutus, 
a noble Trojan, had expelled the giants from Albion, and 
given the whole island to his sons, of whom Locrinus 
the eldest and chief wore the crown of England. The 

1 Luke xxii. 38. It has often been observed that few .things in the 
papacy are new. It is indebted much inore to imitation than to invention. 
At the inauguration of Togrul Beg, as sultan or lieutenant of the prophet- 
vicar (a.d. 1058), he received two crowns and the scimitars of east and ivest, 
with a commission importing that the caliph entrusted to Mm all that part 
of the world which God had committed to his care. The chair of St. Peter 
itself is an importation from the east, and an Arabic inscription to 
Mohammed is said to have been discovered upon it. 



BULLS OF BONIFACE. 



243 



Scots, without contesting these historical facts, replied 
that Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh king of Egypt, had 
wrested the northern part of the island from the power 
of Locrinus, and transmitted it to her descendants, with 
no superior but the pope ! Such was, in fact, the received 
history of this island down to the publication of Camden's 
Britannia; but Boniface got no other satisfaction than to 
be told that the laws of England did not permit the 
king to subject the rights of his crown to any foreign 
tribunal. 

His conflict with the king of France was still more 
unfortunate. Philip the Fair, like our own Edward i., 
thought fit to compel the clergy to contribute towards 
the expenses of his repeated campaigns. The pope 
thereupon issued a bull entitled Clericis laicos (a.d. 1296), 
charging the laity with inveterate hostility to the clergy, 
and prohibiting, under pain of excommunication, any pay- 
ment out of ecclesiastical revenues without his consent. 
The king retorted by prohibiting the export of coin or 
treasure from his dominions, without license from the 
crown. This was cutting off the pope's revenue at a 
blow, and so modified his anger that he allowed the 
clergy to grant a " free benevolence " to the king, when 
in urgent need. A few years after (1301), Philip 
imprisoned a bishop on charge of sedition, when 
Boniface thundered out his bulls Salvator mundi, 
and Ausculta fili, the first of which suspended all 
privileges accorded by the Holy See to the French 
king and people, and the second, asserting the papal 
power in the now familiar text from Jeremiah, 1 sum- 
moned the superior clergy to Eome. Philip burned the 
bull, and prohibited the clergy from obeying the sum- 
mons. The peers and people of France stood by the 

1 Jer. i. 10. 

u 2 



244 



THE MEDIEVAL PAPACY. 



crown, treating the exhortations of the clergy with 
defiance. The pope, incensed at this resistance, published 
the Decretal called Unam sanctam^ which affirms the 
unity of the Church, without which there is no salva- 
tion, and hence the unity of its head in the successor of 
St. Peter. Under the pope are two swords, the spiritual 
and the material — the one to be used by the church, the 
other for the church. The former is in the hand of the 
priest, the latter in the hand of the soldier at the 
nod and sufferance of the priest. To declare these 
swords equal, is to fall into the error of the Manichees, 
who acknowledge two original principles. The temporal 
sword is therefore subject to the spiritual, and the 
spiritual to God only. The conclusion is, " that it is 
absolutely essential to the salvation of every human 
being that he be subject unto the Roman pontiff." 

The king, who showed great moderation, appealed to 
a general council, and forbad his subjects to obey 
any orders of Boniface till it should be assembled. 
The pope resorted to the usual weapons. He drew 
up a bull for the excommunication of the king ; offered 
France to Albert of Austria, king of the Eomans, and 
wrote to the king of England to incite him to prosecute 
his war. 1 

Meantime, Philip having sent William de Nogaret 
on an embassy to the pope, this daring envoy conceived 

1 Yet Edward had far exceeded Philip in his resistance to the pope. 
When Abp. Winchelsey produced the bull Clericis laicos in answer to a 
demand on the clergy, Edward, without quarrelling with the pope (who 
was useful to himself), at once outlawed the whole English clergy for 
obeying the chief whom he permitted to rule over them. The sheriffs seized 
their property. They were robbed on the highway — false actions were 
brought against them, but no defence or complaint on their side was 
allowed in the king's court. These methods of persuasion accomplished 
their object. The clergy yielded their goods, and the pope never stirred 
a ringer to their assistance, nor as much as remonstrated with the king. 



SEIZURE AND DEATH OF BONIFACE. 245 

the design of making him prisoner. Entering Anagni 
at the head of a small force, privately raised in the 
neighbourhood, the conspirators, aided by some of the 
papal household, gained possession of the palace and 
burst into the pope's presence. Boniface, deeming 
himself a dead man, had put on his pontifical robes and 
crown, but these had little effect on the irreverent 
intruders. De Nogaret was one of the Albigenses ; his 
companion, a Colonna, was so inflamed at the sight of 
his persecutor, that he struck him on the face with his 
mailed hand, and would have killed him but for the 
intervention of the other. The captors unaccountably 
delaying to carry off their prize, the people of the place 
rose and rescued the Holy Father. He hastened back 
to Eome, but died of the shock a month after, leaving a 
dangerous feud between the Church and her eldest son. 

The next pope, Benedict xi., endeavoured to heal the 
breach by annulling the decrees of Boniface against the 
French king, and* reinstating the Colonnas ; but he was 
cut off by death in ten months from his election, and it 
was generally suspected that his removal was effected 
by poison administered by the enemies of peace 
(a.d. 1304). Of the contemporary writers some attri- 
bute the crime to the party of Boniface, and others to 
the Florentines, whom Benedict had excommunicated 
for their murderous feud with the Pistoians. The cities 
of Tuscany were at this time a prey to the violence of 
the White and Black factions, the former supported by 
the Ghibellines, and the latter by the Guelphs. 



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CHAPTEK X. 

THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 

Clement V. — The Babylonish Captivity — Avignon — State of Rome — 
Papal avarice — Provisions and reservations — Lay indignation — 
Resistance of the English — Parliamentary measures — Papal simony — 
Annates — Dispensations — Clerical enormities — Council of Vienne — 
Fall of the Templars — Quarrel with the Empire — Anti-pope — Dispute 
with the Franciscans — New Mendicants — Invocation of the Saints — 
Heresy of John xxii. — Illogical solution — Revolution at Rome — 
The Jubilee — Joanna of Sicily — Return of the See — Urban V. — 
Gregory xi. 

On the death of Benedict, many of the cardinals were 
for closing the breach with France by electing a French 
pope ; the others insisted that an Italian was essential 
to the independence of the Holy See. The difference 
was compromised by the election of the archbishop 
of Bordeaux, a Frenchman by birth, but owing his 
preferments to Boniface, and an active supporter of his 
quarrel against Philip. 1 The archbishop, however, had 
secretly come to terms with the king, and his first act 
as Clement v. was to summon the cardinals to attend 
him at Lyons, where he resolved to celebrate his 
coronation. The Sacred College crossed the Alps with 
undissembled repugnance, and two-and-seventy years 
elapsed before the Fapal court returned to Eome. This 

1 The archbishop, who was named Bertrand de Gout, or d'Agout, was 
born the subject of our own Edward I. as duke of Gascony and Guienne, 
and was, therefore, objectionable to the French party till he had reconciled 
himself with their king. The ecclesiastics of this age had little respect to 
the ties of patriotism, even if France had not properly the first claim on a 
Gascon. 



248 



THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 



period of humiliation and corruption the Italian writers 
not inaptly stigmatise as the Babylonish captivity. 

Clement began his pontificate by honourably ful- 
filling his engagements with the French. He absolved 
the king and all his subjects from the censures of his 
predecessors, revoked the offensive bulls, restored the 
Colonnas, and created ten new cardinals, who, with 
the exception of one Englishman, 1 were natives of 
France. He further granted Philip the ecclesiastical 
tenths of his kingdom for five years. These conditions 
had been expressly stipulated for as the price of the 
French support in the conclave. There was a further 
concession reserved in Philip's own breast, which the 
pope was to comply with on his demand. If it be 
true that the king claimed in this right the condemna- 
tion of Boniface as a heretic, Clement had the manliness 
to refuse. He ventured to inflict a further disappoint- 
ment by supporting the claim of Henry of Luxembourg 
to the empire in preference to the French king's brother. 
To escape the further importunities of his too powerful 
ally, the pope removed into the dominions of his own 
vicar, the king of Naples (a.d. 1309). 

The place selected was Avignon, belonging to 
Charles the Lame as count of Provence. The city is 
pleasantly situated in a fertile plain, having the Ehone 
under its walls to the west, and an arm of the Sorgue 
running through its midst. In the days of the ancient 
republic it was one of the Latin cities, whose natives 
enjoyed the proud title of Romans. After being subject 
to the Australian Franks, it was taken by the Saracens 

1 Thomas Bradwardine, chaplain and confessor to Edward in., and 
afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. He died of the plague in London 
immediately on returning from his consecration at Avignon, 26th August, 
1349. He was called the Doctor profundus, and his great work De Causa 
Dei, was the noblest vindication of the doctrines of grace since Augustine. 



pukcha.se of the city. 



249 



in 730, and twice rescued by Charles Martel. In the 
ninth century it passed to the kings of Aries, or 
Burgundy, but afterwards became a free republic, 
governed by its own consuls, under the suzerainty of 
the count of Provence. The authority of the chief 
magistrate, who was called the Podesta, continued till 
the early part of the nineteenth century. 1 

The jSTeapolitan dynasty, though of French origin, 
was independent of the French crown, when the pope 
took up his residence at Avignon. Charles the Lame 
was soon after succeeded by his third son Bobert, who, 
dying in 1343, left his crown to his granddaughter 
J oanna, the young and beautiful wife of Andrew, prince 
of Hungary. The romantic and probably criminal 
adventures of this princess, which bear so strong a 
resemblance to those of Mary Queen of Scots, convulsed 
the south of Italy for many years. In one of her 
frequent exiles Clement took advantage of her neces- 
sities to purchase her rights in Avignon for eighty 

1 In 1226, this little state shut its gates against the French king 
Louis viii. and the Papal Legate, as they were marching on the Albi- 
genses, with whom the free citizens cherished a generous sympathy. This 
act of independence cost them dear ; for the king immediately laid siege 
to the town and demolished a large part of its walls. Not long after, the 
French crown succeeded to a more legitimate authority, as heir to the 
count of Toulouse, to whom the suzerainty had descended by marriage, 
jointly with the count of Provence. Louis viii. of France created his son 
Charles count of Anjou, on his marriage with Beatrice the heiress of Pro- 
vence, a.d. 1246. Charles obtained the kingdom of Sicily from Clement iv. 
in 1268, and to his son Charles the Lame the claims of the French crown 
were ceded by Philip the Fair, a.d. 1298. This king left a progeny of 
princes and princesses, who were allied with half the thrones of Europe. 
His eldest son was king of Hungary ; the fourth, Philip of Tarentum, 
titular emperor of Constantinople ; one daughter was espoused to the king 
of Arragon, and another to Frederick, king of Trinacria, or the Island of 
Sicily. The continental Sicily (or Naples) descended to his third son 
Robert, and from him to his granddaughter Joanna, Avho married her 
cousin Andrew, prince of Hungary. The struggles of his family for the 
crowns of the Two Sicilies occasioned the continual intervention of the 
Holy See. 



250 



THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 



thousand gold florins, but this inadequate price was 
never paid.' The pope placed it to the account of the 
tribute due to himself from the Neapolitan crown, and 
having procured a renunciation of the paramount suze- 
rainty of the emperor, he took possession of the city 
and territory as absolute sovereign (a.d. 1348). 1 

Avignon was the seat of a bishopric and a university. 
The sojourn of the popes filled it with so many churches 
and religious houses, that it received the nickname of 
the " tinkling town. 5 ' 2 Petrarch, who often resided there, 
and whose Laura lies buried in the church of the Cor- 
deliers, speaks of the inhabitants as the most notorious 
sinners under the sun ; but the outward symptoms were 
those of supereminent holiness. Seven parishes, seven 
colleges, seven monasteries, seven female convents, seven 
hospitals, seven palaces, and seven gates, gave the city 
a mystic sanctity in the eyes of the superstitious, 3 and 
though the Eomans thought the See in captivity, the 
popes were far from deploring their exile. 

Eome was at this time a prey to anarchy : the great 
houses at the head of their respective factions filled the 
streets with daily tumults. The Guelphs fought under 
the Ursini, the Ghibellines under the Colonnas. Con- 
stant efforts were made to restore the republic, but the 
people were too factious and too fickle to submit 
to any permanent government. The king of Naples, 
though vicar of the Ecclesiastical States, could not 
prevent the chief cities from asserting their inde- 
pendence under a republican magistracy, nor control 

1 The validity of the bargain was contested on several grounds. Joanna 
was a minor, and at the time de facto deprived of the crown. Moreover, 
the confirming authority was the pretender Charles, whom the pope had 
created king of the Romans. Louis, the reigning emperor, was not con- 
sulted. 

2 La Ville Sonnante, Rahelais, Book iv. 211. 

3 Diet. deJVlorery. 



PECUNIARY EXACTIONS. 



251 



the petty tyrants who, seizing towns and districts by 
the strong hand, acknowledged neither pope nor em- 
peror on their domains. Italy was in its normal state of 
brigandage, and the effect was most disastrous on the 
territorial revenues of the Chnrch. 

Still the pontiffs of Avignon fonnd means to 
exceed their predecessors in luxury and opulence. 
Clement v. was the richest pope that had yet 
worn the fisherman's ring. His successor, John xxn., 
left behind him a treasure of twenty-five millions 
of gold florins in coin, jewels, and plate. 1 These 
were the profits of their ecclesiastical patronage, and 
the fees on dispensations and bulls. Never were the 
exactions of the Holy See carried to such excess as 
during its exile at Avignon. Without directly denying 
the rights of the proper patrons, the pope claimed, by 
the plenitude of the apostolic power, to " provide" an 
incumbent for any dignity or benefice that he chose. The 
provision was made either in anticipation of the vacancy, 
so as to prevent the right of election or patronage from 
arising, or the person presented was objected to, and 
the pope appointed by " provision " to prevent a fresh 
nomination. 2 Another common practice was to reserve a 

1 In England about this time the gold florin was current at ten shillings, 
which would then be equal to £10 of our present money. This would 
make the pope's savings exceed in value three years' revenue of the United 
Kingdom, or one-quarter of our National debt ! 

2 The objection ought to have been some canonical irregularity or 
unfitness ; but the most frivolous pretences were resorted to. In 1229 
Gregory ix. subjected the archbishop elect of Canterbury to an examina- 
tion. He was asked whether Christ descended into hell in the flesh or 
out of the flesh? — how the Lord's body was produced on the altar? — and 
what would be the effect of a contract of marriage, if one of the parties 
should die an unbeliever ? His answers were pronounced utterly bad, and 
Walter, the monk of Canterbury duly elected by his chapter, whose right 
was indisputable, was set aside for Richard Grant, whom the pope gave to 
the Church. To this illegal act Gregory was bribed by Henry in. with a 
tenth of his subjects' property, and most of the usurpations of Rome are 
traceable to similar acts of royal treason. 



252 



THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 



benefice, while full, for the pope's future disposal ; or to 
appropriate its revenue to himself or a cardinal, leaving 
the duties to be neglected, or performed by some ill-paid 
deputy. Nominees, too, were quartered on the bishops 
with orders to prefer them to the first vacancy. 

All the evils, and more than all that we can now 
conceive, of plurality, non-residence, and simony, were 
practised on the most gigantic scale. The bishops and 
abbots, with a large proportion of the inferior dignitaries 
and incumbents, throughout Europe, were the pope's 
nominees, many of them being foreigners who never 
entered their churches. It was complained in England 
under Henry in., that the revenues drawn out of the 
country by foreign ecclesiastics exceeded those of the 
crown. The laity were so incensed at the usurpation 
of their patronage, that they formed a league for the 
expulsion of all foreign priests, and in derision of a text 
often quoted by the successors of St. Peter, the seal of 
this association bore the device of two swords with the 
motto, " Behold here are two swords." 1 The opposition 
was so threatening that Gregory ix. promised to abstain 
from further interference with lay patrons ; but the 
grievances continued unabated with respect to dignities 
and benefices in the election or gift of ecclesiastical 
persons. The popes were so accustomed to issue their 
mandates to all ranks of the clergy, and the princes had 
so shamefully surrendered this class of their subjects to 
their absolute authority, that Clement v. declared these 
mandates to be the inalienable prerogative of the Holy 
See, as well in England as in other states. 

In the reign of Edward in. Parliament complained 
that the sums paid to the pope for ecclesiastical digni- 
ties, amounted to five-fold the annual taxes appertaining 

1 Possibly these were only the arms of the see of London. 



RESISTANCE OF THE ENGLISH. 



253 



to the king: that aliens, enemies to the land, were in 
possession of the best preferments, and acted worse than 
J ews or Saracens : that God gave his sheep to the pope 
to be pastured, not shorn or shay en : that no prince in 
Christendom owned a fourth part the treasure which the 
pope took out of this realm "most sinfully and that 
lay patrons were encouraged by the pope's simony to 
" sell their benefices to beasts, no otherwise than Christ 
was sold to the Jews." The deans of York, Salisbury, 
and Lincoln, the archdeacons of Canterbury, York, 
Durham, and Suffolk, with several prebendaries, were 
cardinals remaining at the papal court, and drawing 
twenty-thousand marks yearly, in addition to an equal 
sum sent to the pope for Peter-pence. The pope 
(Gregory xi.) had created twelve new cardinals, making 
a total of thirty (whereas there were wont to be but 
twelve in all) and with two or three exceptions, all were 
the king's enemies. 

The just resentment of the English people showed 
itself in the statutes of Mortmain, Provisors, and Pre- 
munire, 1 and if our princes had been equally true to their 
people, the papal yoke would have been earlier shaken 
oif from this island. But in the middle ages the kings 
of England were themselves foreigners, and generally in 
quest of some personal advantage, for which the papal 
influence was desired. 2 Hence the Eeformation was 

1 The first of these (Edward i.) forbade the conveyance of land to 
churches or monasteries without the king's license : the other two prohi- 
bited all papal collations, provisions, or reservations, and all appeals to 
the pope in prejudice of the king or his subjects under pain of fine and 
imprisonment at the king's pleasure. 

2 Edward I. at the very time of his dispute with Boniface vm. about 
Scotland, was employing his mediation with the king of France for the re- 
storation of Gascony. Edward n., when defeated at Bannockburn, and 
on the point of losing Berwick, solicited John xxn. to mediate a peace with 
Robert Bruce. The pontiff sent his legates to proclaim a two years' truce 
in his own name, and compel both kings to observe it. Edward sub- 



254 



THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 



delayed till, the French provinces being lost, and the 
ISTorman aristocracy thinned in the wars of the Roses, a 
national monarch arose at the head of a nnited people, to 
deal more effectually with Ronie. 1 

The patronage usurped by the popes was openly 
sold to the highest bidder. Simony, for the suppression 
of which Gregory vn. had demanded the supremacy, 
was the beaten road to the Apostolic chamber at Avig- 
non. John xxn. demanded Annates or first-fruits from 
every benefice ; and to increase their produce he 
revelled in the uncanonical practice of translations. A 
rich preferment was made the occasion of five or six 
vacancies, each of which furnished a year's profits to the 
court of Borne before the presentee was admitted. 2 The 
abuse was aggravated by multiplying bulls of nomina- 
tion and dispensation, in order to enhance the fees. 

Nor were these the only kind of dispensations which 
ministered to the papal exchequer. Every sort of 
obligation, canonical, legal, or moral, might be dispensed 
with for a pecuniary consideration. There was no 
promise or oath which the pope would not relax, no 
marriage, or impediment to marriage, which he did not 
assume the power to dissolve. Crime itself had its 
price at this hideous tribunal ;' a deacon or sub-deacon 
might be absolved of a murder for twenty crowns, a 
bishop was charged three hundred livres. Eoman 

mitted, but Bruce refusing to let the legates enter Scotland, proceeded to 
capture Berwick, for which he was excommunicated, and the kingdom put 
under an interdict. 

1 In Germany the princes of the empire were content to yield the 
entire church patronage to the pope, if he would only leave the revenue to 
the resident incumbent. They complained that Germany was treated as 
a gold mine, sending enormous sums* to Avignon and receiving nothing in 
return but epistles and speeches. — FJeury, 1. 96. 

2 The statute of prasmunire, revived a.d. 1392, forbade English subjects 
from soliciting at Rome, translations, excommunications, bills, mandates, 
or any other process in prejudice of the crown. 



CLERICAL ENORMITIES. 255 

Catholic writers themselves complain that kingdoms, 
cities, and castles were esteemed the patrimony of 
Christ, and gold, silver, and purple were valned before 
humility, faith, and doctrine. 1 

The practical working of the system was painted in 
terrible colours at the Conncil of Yienne (a. d. 1311). 
Ecclesiastical censures had lost all terror from the noto- 
rious venality of the authorities. Prebends and dignities 
were engrossed by foreigners of dissolute habits, who 
never entered their churches ; even children were made 
dignitaries. The papal court detained large numbers of 
the higher clergy in attendance on itself, defending their 
rights or buying promotion. Pluralities were as common 
as simony ; some held a dozen benefices, or more, and 
resided on none. 2 Divine service was omitted, or 
performed with shocking indecency. The people were 
universally ignorant of the Christian faith and the way 
of salvation. The clergy frequented tournaments and 
other games, dressed like the military, to the great 
scandal of their nocks. 3 The monks, instead of living in 
their monasteries, were running about like unbridled 
horses, committing deeds of which it was a shame to 

1 Denina, xiv. 6. Gianone, xxii. 8. Villani, xi. 20. Waddington's 
Ch. Hist. xxii. 

2 Thomas Cobham, called the " good parson," who in 1313 was elected 
archbishop of Canterbury, but set aside by a collusion between the pope 
and the king, was at the time precentor of York, sub-dean of Salisbury, 
archdeacon of Lewes, and canon of St. Paul's and of Wells. 

3 See the emperor Charles iv.'s letter to the archbishop of Mayence, 
a.d. 1359 : " They adopt the military habit laced with gold and silver, 
wear boots, and nourish beards and long hair." — Robertson, C. vi. In 
England, archbishop Stratford's " Constitutions " (a.d. 1343) reprehend in 
like manner the neglect of the tonsure, the effeminate locks, and long beards 
of the clergy, their costly girdles, imitation swords, shoes chequered with 
red and green, furred cloaks, and other fopperies. Archdeacons took their 
hounds with them on their visitations, and not only enjoyed their sport 
while their officials held the visitation, but made the poor parsons pay the 
keep of an enormous retinue, including these most unecclesiastical terriers. 



256 



THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 



speak. "Oh!" exclaimed one of the bishops, "that 
those winged creatures, the cardinals, full of eyes within 
and without, would look into these things ; but like 
chooses like ; we must have reform in the head as well 
as in the members." 1 

Such were the complaints presented and admitted in the 
council of the pope ; yet the canons then passed (fifty-six 
in number) were directed only to check the progress of 
heresy, and impose some decent restraints on the monks 
and inferior clergy. ~No reform was even attempted of 
the head and fountain of corruption, the papal court. 

At this council the French king again endeavoured to 
procure the condemnation of the late pope as a heretic, a 
piece of revenge in which Clement still refused to gratify 
him. In another and more bloody persecution, the pope 
ministered to the royal wishes so readily that many 
writers suppose it to be the true subject of the secret 
article. Philip had conceived the design of obtaining 
the crown of Jerusalem for one of his sons, and endowing 
it from the enormous possessions of the Templars. By 
opposing this project, the grand-master, Jean Mole\ drew 
upon himself the hatred of this implacable prince, and 
the ruin of the Order. The king accused the whole 
body of the most abominable crimes, including the formal 
renunciation of the religion they were sworn to defend. 
The adoration of an idol and spitting on the cross were 
alleged to be among their forms of admission, and the 
most infamous excesses were imputed to their daily con- 
versation. The evidence was simply the confession of 
two members of the Order, who, to escape a sentence 
passed on themselves, became the accusers of their 
brethren. On the unsupported statements of these con- 
victs, Philip ordered all the Templars in France to be 
arrested and subjected to torture by the Inquisition. On 

1 Raynaldus E. Cod. Vat. Wadd. iii. 7, n. 



FALL OF THE TEMPLARS. 



257 



the confessions so obtained lie denounced to all Europe a 
body of the highest rank in Christian chivalry, which 
was largely composed of the first families in every realm, 
and solemnly dedicated to the defence of religion. 

The accusation was received with a burst of disbelief ; 
the pope pronounced the charges incredible. The English 
peers and prelates had never heard a whisper of them. 1 
In Germany the Templars were honourably acquitted by 
a provincial synod. 2 Confessions, however, multiplied in 
France under the tender mercies of the Inquisition, and 
Philip found means to impress the pope with his views. 
The grand master, who kept his court at Cyprus like a 
monarch, was summoned to answer before the pontiff, 
and on obeying, with more courage than prudence, he 
was seized at Paris and thrown into prison by the king. 
Clement himself wrote to Edward n. to exhort him to 
follow the example by arresting the Templars, and 
sequestering their property till the Holy See should 
decide on its disposal. 3 This was a hint which no 
Norman prince ever disregarded. Edward, who had 
previously sent out a circular to the kings of Europe, 
entreating them to turn a deaf ear to Philip's slanders, 
turned round at once, arrested the Templars, and took 
possession of their estates. 

The true crimes of this famous Order were their 
riches and their pride. From the "Poor of the Holy 
City " they had risen to be companions of princes, 
and owners of sixteen thousand lordships in various 
kingdoms. Their grand master, like another pope, 
stretched his baton from Cyprus into all the realms 

1 Foed. ii. pt. i. 10. Hook's " Lives of the Archbishops," iii. 444. 

2 Dupin, Nouv. Bib. Cent. xiv. 2, Wadd. iii. 4, n. 

3 The pope disgraced himself so far as to urge the king to subject them 
to the torture, and Edward consented, provided the inquisitors did not 
inflict permanent mutilation, or proceed to a violent effusion of blood. — 
Hook, iii. 450. 

S 



258 



THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 



of Christendom. The knights offended the aristocracy 
by their insupportable arrogance, the clergy hated them 
for their Papal exemptions. Their unquestioned valour 
was stained by debauchery; to " drink like a Templar" 1 
was a proverb even in England ; and their contempt of the 
law left them without friend or ally. Hence, when their 
visitation came, they found neither mercy nor justice. 

Still, the Council of Yienne could not be persuaded to 
condemn so large a body on the confessions of a compa- 
ratively few. The pope, therefore, committing the defini- 
tive sentence to the provincial synods of each nation, took 
upon himself to suppress the Order in the plenitude of his 
apostolic power, reserving its estates for after considera- 
tion. The Bull was passed in a private consistory, and pub- 
lished in the council without submitting it to the vote. 
Philip purchased this favour by resigning all pretensions 
to the property, which by a second decree was assigned 
to the Knights Hospitallers. Edward n. was deeply dis- 
gusted at being called on to surrender his spoils ; he kept 
possession for twelve years, and would probably never have 
yielded but for his unpopularity with his own subjects. 

Philip took his revenge in another way. The grand 
master, who had been reserved to the personal judgment 
of the pope, received sentence of perpetual imprisonment ; 
but, as he continued to protest his innocence, the king 
declared him a relapsed heretic, and ordered him to be 
burned alive. This inhuman murder determines the 
character of the persecution, and brands the pontiff and 
king with a common infamy. Both followed their victim 
within a year, and it was said that, from the midst of the 
flames, the grand master cited them to meet him within 
that period at the judgment-seat of God. 2 

1 Collier, E. H. vi.- — but in Italy the same proverb was used of the pope, 
bibere papaliter, Bower, vi. 455. 

2 Morery's Diet., Jean Mole. 



QUARREL WITH THE EMPIRE. 



259 



While thus unduly complaisant to the French crown, 
the popes of Avignon pursued the old quarrel with the 
empire to the farthest extreme. Henry of Luxem- 
bourg was affronted by the ministration of a legate, 
in place of the pope, at his coronation (a.d. 1312). 
The ceremony took place in the Lateran, St. Peter's 
Church being denied by the Guelphs, who held the 
Leonine city under Cardinal Ursini. In attempting to 
chastise this faction, the emperor was resisted by the 
pope's vicar, the king of Naples, and the pope himself 
had to make peace between them, as " twin sons " of the 
Eoman See. On the next vacancy, John declared him- 
self vicar of the empire, and forbade any election without 
his permission. 1 Louis of Bavaria was excommunicated 
for disobeying this decree, but, advancing to Eome, the 
president of the Council of State placed the imperial 
crown on his head, and the bishops of Yenice and 
Corsica anointed him with the holy oil (a.d. 1328). 

The emperor, now calling a council, deposed the pope 
as a heretic, and elected a successor who took the name 
of Nicholas v. The new pontiff recrowned the emperor, 
and cou firmed the sentence on his predecessor. The 
Guelphs and Ghibellines rushed to their respective 
sides, and all Italy was involved in war. On the 
emperor's return to Germany, Nicholas was obliged to 
submit ; but Louis continued under the ban of the Holy 
See till the day of his death. To strengthen himself, he 
created Edward in. of England vicar general of the 
empire, and further supported his claim to the throne 
of France. Philip of Valois, who obtained the crown in 
virtue of the Salic law, was forbidden by Benedict, 
the successor of John, to employ his ecclesiastical 
tenths in maintaining the war with a brother Chris- 

1 Const., 31 Mar. 1817. 

s 2 



260 



THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 



tian. The pontiff would gladly have composed the 
difference : at any rate, the Church's grant should not 
assist in maintaining it. " If I had two souls," he wrote 
to Philip, "I would sacrifice one to oblige you; but 
having but one, I must save it if I can." The rulers of 
that age were little accustomed to such language from 
the father of Christendom. 

The next pope was not so scrupulous. Clement vi. 
demanded as the price of absolution, that Louis should 
not merely resign the empire as a fief of the Apostolic 
See, but surrender his hereditary dominions, with himself, 
his wife and family, to the absolute disposal of the Holy 
Father. The emperor, who had survived no less than 
six excommunications, drily communicated the extrava- 
gant demand to the Estates of Germany, by whom it 
was, of course, indignantly prohibited. Clement threat- 
ened to give away the crown himself if they did not 
proceed to a new election : by deposing one of the 
electoral archbishops, and absolving another from ex- 
communication, he procured a mock election of Charles 
of Bohemia, who had previously sworn to the papal 
conditions. The archbishop of Cologne forthwith 
crowned him king of the Eomans, but the Imperial- 
ists nicknamed him " king of the priests," and Louis 
reigned with little molestation till he was killed by a 
fall from his horse at a bear hunt (a.d. 1347). 

During this conflict, a dispute arose among the 
Franciscan friars, on the obligation by which their 
founder absolutely forbade the acquisition of property, 
enjoining the whole Order to subsist on daily alms. To 
avoid this inconvenient injunction, the Holy See had 
consented to hold lands in trust for the Order ; and by 
this fiction the friars enjoyed enormous revenues. On 
the other hand, it was contended that the pope himself 
had no power over the will of St. Frarjeis, and some of 



THE NEW MENDICANTS. 261 

the more ardent mendicants formed a separate sect, 
known as the Fratricelli, or little brothers. 1 Another 
company were denominated Tertiarics (from their scru- 
pulous adherence to the third of the monastic rules — 
chastity, obedience, and poverty), and Beghards or 
Beguines. 2 The " Spirituals" were another portion of 
the reformed Franciscans : discarding the flowing robes 
of a degenerate age, they spread over Europe, 
clad in the coarse garment and cowl of St. Francis. 
Preaching everywhere the indispensable obligation of 
poverty, they became as obnoxious as the Poor Men of 
Lyons to the prelates and their more luxurious brethren. 
John xxn. consigned them to the Inquisition as Dona- 
tists, Waldenses, Manicheans, and all that was bad. 
Numbers of the unoffending enthusiasts were actually 
committed to the flames, for asserting that Christ 
and his apostles were mendicants like St. Francis. 
The emperor, on the other hand, was charmed with 
this doctrine ; he would have been glad to see all the 
prelates of the empire converted to it. He opened his 
dominions freely to its preachers, and cordially agreed 
with them that the persecutor of poverty was a heretic. 

These were not the only persons who hurled this re- 
proach at the pope. The whole Church was scandalised 
by his assertion, that departed saints do not see God till 
the day of judgment, but remain with Christ in paradise. 
The Church was realising a vast revenue from the inter- 
cession of the saints ; and how were the purchasers to 
be sure of their money's worth, if these venerated beings 

1 This Italian nickname is not to be confounded with the Latin 
Fraterculi, or Friars-minor, which was the modest designation assumed 
by all the Franciscans. 

2 The two words are found united in an edict of Charles iv. (a.d. 
1369) and interpreted " beggars." — Die wilgen Armen. Mosheim, E. H. 
xiv, 2, xxxviii. These Franciscan Beguines were by no means the same 
with the Beguines of Germany and Belgium. — Ibid. xiii. 2, xli. 



262 



THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 



were not really with God ? Philip of Yalois, surnamed 
the Catholic, took up the question with becoming 
ardour. Speaking as a layman and a Christian, he must 
say he saw no use in praying to the saints, or expecting 
salvation by their merits, if our Lady and the blessed 
apostles are not to see God till the day of judgment. 
Such a doctrine invalidated every indulgence and pardon 
granted, or to be granted, by Holy Church : it would 
be the destruction of the Catholic faith. 1 The eldest 
son of the Church would not endure this profanation. 
Assembling the University of Paris, he required of them 
a definition of the truth, and, waxing more and more 
zealous, finally threatened to burn the pope for a heretic 
if he did not subscribe it. 2 

Had the spirit of the grand master of the Templars 
hovered over Paris, it might now have been appeased. 
The king of Sicily, the Dominicans, the bishops, all took 
the alarm. John wavered, explained, equivocated ; but 
finally, at ninety years of age, escaped the grave of a 
heretic, by making a fall and humble retractation a few 
hours before his death. Benedict xn. soldered up the 
controversy by explaining that the ascension of Christ 
had enabled departed souls to enjoy the beatific vision 
from the moment of death, provided they were fully 
purged from sin ; and if not, as soon as they are delivered 
out of purgatory : but those who die in mortal, unrepented 
sin, are cast into hell to be tormented for ever. This 
explanation secured the important points; — the inter- 
cession of the saints, the advantage of indulgences and 
masses for the dead, and the revenues of Holy Church 
derived from the same. Nevertheless it was added, out 
of some lingering respect for the true Judge of men, 
that all will stand at the last day before the tribunal 



1 John Villani X. 



2 Card. d'Aillac, Bower, vi. 442. 



REVOLUTION AT EOME. 



263 



of Christ, to give an account of their deeds, and receive 
their due punishment or reward. The pope made no 
attempt to reconcile these contradictory propositions, 
and they were confirmed, with equal contempt of logic, 
by the Council of Trent. 1 

Throughout this dispute, it is melancholy to observe 
the absolute indifference of pope, prelates, and princes, 
towards that which the apostle counted the highest good, 
viz., to " depart and be with Christ." To be with Christ 
was now no boon at all : neither His presence nor His 
righteousness entered into the contemplations of these 
zealous " Catholics." They were anxious only to 
provide an escape out of purgatory, and sustain the 
solvency of the great bank of saintly merits, by means 
of which the Church carried on her lucrative trade. 

While these dissensions were weakening the papacy 
at Avignon, Borne was a prey to anarchy. Despairing 
of forming a permanent government of their own, the 
citizens offered to elect Clement ruler for life, if he 
would return to the Lateran, his proper cathedral and 
the first church in the world. 2 On the pontiff declining 
to accept as a gift that which he claimed of divine right, 
the Eomans resolved to restore the ancient republic in 
its most popular development. Having expelled the 
papal vicar with all the nobility, they elected a tribune 
of the people, who sent out a manifesto to all kings 

1 The doctrine of an intermediate state between death and the resur- 
rection was, undoubtedly, taught by the primitive Fathers, grounded on 
the Lord's words to the penitent thief ; but that Christ returned to para- 
dise after His resurrection, was one of the mediseval blunders. The 
Scripture expressly records His ascension into heaven. 

2 The Ghibelline party in Rome regarded St. Peter's and the Leonine 
city with dislike, and we find it on several occasions in possession of the 
Guelphs. The Lateran was the old cathedral of Rome, and so late as 
a.d. 1372, Gregory XI. issued a constitution, declaring it the church of the 
See, and the first in the world. 



264 



THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 



and princes, notifying that Eome had resumed her 
authority as the metropolis and mistress of the world, 
and demanding their universal submission. The mag- 
niloquent tribune, whose name was Nicolo di Lorenzo, 
popularly styled Cola di Bienzi, soon experienced, like 
many a greater man before him, the fickleness of the 
Eoman populace, and was glad to escape in disguise to 
Naples. 

The giddy people turned their attention to the 
jubilee, which the pope, at their request, had ap- 
pointed to be kept in the middle of the century 
instead of waiting till the close. Notwithstanding the 
great plague which raged throughout Europe for three 
years (a.d. 1348-51), or perhaps in consequence of this 
visitation, the streets of Eome were crowded with 
pilgrims. From Christinas to Easter, a million or more 
entered the gates daily} The crowd to see the holy 
napkin of Yeronica, now first exhibited on Passion 
Sunday, was so great that several persons were trampled 
to death. It was calculated that not one in ten reached 
their homes again in safety. Amid the ravages of a 
superstition, scarcely exceeded by the concourses of 
Juggernaut, the Romans reaped their harvest heedless 
alike of plague and pilgrimage. The prices were such 
that even bread was unobtainable by the poor, and the 
legate was threatened with death for endeavouring to 
set some limits to the extortion. 

The horrors of the times were aggravated by a 
domestic tragedy in the kingdom of Naples, or, as it was 
then called, Sicily citra Pharum. The young queen 
Joanna, grand- daughter and heir of Robert the Wise, 
was married to the prince of Hungary, who in the year 
1345 was strangled in his bed, and thrown out of a 



1 Till. i. 56, 



RETURN OF THE SEE. 



265 



window. Bumoiir fixed the crime on the queen. The 
king of Hungary, approaching at the head of an army to 
take vengeance for his brother, Joanna, who had chosen 
a new consort, fled to Avignon. Clement vi. accepted 
her protestations, and confirmed the marriage, though 
within the forbidden degrees. The Hungarian monarch, 
meantime, overran the kingdom, taking condign ven- 
geance of the conspirators, but the queen, having raised 
a force in Provence, effected a landing in Naples and 
recovered her crown. 1 

The continued clamours of the Italians for the 
restoration of the See, obtained a temporary concession 
in the return of Urban v. to the Lateran (a.d. 1362). 
The pontiff yielded to the eloquence of Petrarch. 
" Would you rise at the last day," exclaimed the poet, 
"in the company of the Avignonese, the most noto- 
rious sinners under heaven, or among Peter and Paul, 
St. Stephen and St. Lawrence ?" He was received with 
the utmost rejoicings, and conducted in great state to 
the Vatican. There he was visited by queen Joanna, 
to whom he gave the golden rose and the sword, conse- 
crated for the most favoured princes at Easter. The 
emperor Charles iv. followed, with his fourth wife whom 
the pope crowned at St. Peter's : he obliged the emperor, 
however, to leave the next day, for fear of any attempt 
on the city. The same year Urban received the rarer 
honour of a visit from the Greek emperor, John Palseo- 
logus, who, in the forlorn hope of obtaining aid against 
the Turks, made a formal submission to the pope, and 
solemnly professed the Latin faith. 2 

Still Urban, like a true Frenchman, sighed for his 

1 It was during this year that Avignon passed to the Holy See by 
purchase. 

2 The document signed and sealed with a golden bull is still preserved 
in the Castle of St. Angelo. 



266 



THE AVIGNON PAPACY. 



native climate. Three years of Borne determined his 
return to Avignon, in spite of many entreaties and 
omens : the prediction of St. Bridget was fulfilled by 
his dying three months after his arrival; and the 
honour of bringing back the Apostolic See from cap- 
tivity was reserved to Gregory xi. This pope was 
nephew to Clement vi., whose favour raised him to the 
cardinalate at eighteen years of age. He listened to 
the embassies from Eome, and the exhortations of St. 
Catherine of Sienna, in spite of the remonstrances of 
the cardinals, though backed by the French king, and 
the tears of his own family. The fleets of Naples, 
Sicily, Venice, and Genoa, conducted the Holy Father 
with great pomp to the mouth of the Tiber. From 
Ostia he advanced in triumphal procession to Eome. 
No consul or Caesar ever entered with a prouder tri- 
umph. The successor of St. Peter was restored to the 
long-deserted tomb of the apostles, and the Eternal 
City was beside itself with delight. 

Matters flowed less pleasantly when the pope came 
to require the fulfilment of the civic promises. The 
twelve Bannerets who rode at the head of their wards, 
more like knights than aldermen, refused to relinquish 
their authority. Neither men nor money were forth- 
coming for the covenanted war on the Florentines. The 
Eomans wanted a pope among them for their own 
advantage, not for his ; and having got him, nothing 
more was necessary. Gregory had begun to contem- 
plate a second " captivity," when death released him 
from his perplexity in the forty-seventh year of his 
age (a .D. 1378). 



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CHAPTEE XI. 

THE GREAT SCHISM. 

Decay of the Papacy — Tumultuous Election of Urban vi. — Flight of the 
Cardinals — Election of Clement vn., who retires to Avignon — 
Murder of Queen Joanna — Atrocities of Urban — Schism of the 
National Churches — True centre of Union — Boniface ix. — Rival 
Popes — Council of Pisa — Both deposed — Election of John xxm. — 
Council of Constance — Deposition of John — Gregory resigns — Resist- 
ance of Benedict xni. — Election of Martin v. — Close of the Schism — 
Process against Wiclif — Rule of Faith — Church authority preferred 
to Scripture — Trial and Execution of Huss and Jerome — Communion 
in one kind — Distraction in Italy — The Papal restoration. 

In returning out of u the Babylonish captivity," the 
Holy See found its reputation sensibly diminished by 
long absence from Kome, and the means resorted to 
for the supply of its exchequer. There was something 
dazzling in the imperial ambition enthroned on the 
seven hills, from Hildebrand to Boniface; but the 
substitution of a mere lust for gold provoked at once 
irritation and contempt. The subserviency to French 
interests had excited the opposition of the English 
and the rest of Europe. Spiritual aggressions had 
been met in several states by temporal laws : prelates, 
no less than princes, were loud in their dissatisfaction : 
the Franciscans rilled the world with their complaints. 
The General Council, so often threatened, was now 
seriously agitated. At the same time, light was break- 
ing in on the dark and superstitious spirit of the day; 
the universities were getting tired of the arrogant pre- 
tensions of scholastic divinity ; and the Bible, after 
fixing the attention of the learned, was beginning to be 
translated for the vulgar. 



270 



THE GREAT SCHISM. 



At Eome itself the anxiety was of another sort. 
The States of the Church had been usurped by the 
emperor, or some of the many local lay governments. 
Eire and sword had been carried to the gates of the 
Eternal City; the churches were in ruins; grass was 
growing on the altars, and pilgrims no longer flocked to 
worship St. Peter, and fill the purses of the Eomans. 
The citizens were resolved not to suffer another trans- 
lation. 

On the death of Gregory xi. the magistrates inti- 
mated to the cardinals the necessity for choosing a 
Eonian, or at least an Italian, pope. 1 The suggestion 
was enforced by the shouts of the populace, who sur- 
rounded the conclave ; fires were kindled under their 
windows, and the bells of the capitol and St. Peter 
sounded to arms. The bannerets broke into the conclave 
itself ; and a cardinal, who addressed the mob from the 
window, was interrupted with cries of " A Eoman, 
an Italian, or Death ! " The conclave hesitated no 
longer; they elected the archbishop of Bari, a Neapo- 
litan of good repute, but managing to let the mob think 
their choice had fallen on a Eoman, they shuffled off 
their copes, and got safe to their houses before the truth 
was discovered. The archbishop being "at least an 
Italian" the Eomans submitted, and he was peacefully 
enthroned by the name of Urban vr. 

A few weeks after, the Erench cardinals, withdraw- 
ing unobserved from Eome, assembled at Avignon, and 
declared the election void, as having been conducted 
under force. They then retired to Eondi in Naples, 
and being joined by the four Italian cardinals, each 
expecting the tiara for himself, the whole college entered 



1 The conclave consisted of eleven French cardinals, four Italians, and 
one Spaniard ; but the French were divided into two parties. 



PERFIDY OF URBAN. 



271 



into conclave. The French outwitted the Italians, and 
the choice fell on the cardinal Eobert of Geneva, who 
was installed by the name of Clement vn. 

This was the commencement of the Great Schism, 
which divided the Church for forty years, producing 
constant wars throughout Europe, and effecting a palpable 
decline in the papal authority. It is still undetermined 
which was the true pope and which the antipope, but 
there can hardly be a doubt that the first choice was much 
the worst of the two. The supporters of Urban account 
for the unanimous desertion of the cardinals, by the 
severity with which he reprimanded their excesses ; but 
a darker reason is assigned for the defection of queen 
Joanna, who was the first to welcome the Neapolitan 
pope, and supply him with men and money. She dis- 
covered that, while accepting her favours, Urban was 
conspiring with the presumptive heir to her crown to 
depose herself, on condition of his making over the prin- 
cipality of Capua to the pope's nephew. Shocked at this 
treachery, the queen eagerly received the cardinals into 
her dominions, and afforded her protection to the election 
of Clement. 

Urban, keeping possession at Eome, supplied the 
defection of the sacred college by creating in one batch 
twenty-six cardinals, mostly Italians. His rival, with 
the advantage of the older body, retired to Naples. But 
the popular feeling for their compatriot Urban was too 
strong for the royal favour, and Clement was driven to 
the old retreat at Avignon. The cardinals who had 
refused to move with Gregory gladly welcomed the return 
of the pontifical court, and he was formally acknowledged 
by the crown and church of France. 

Meanwhile Urban revenged himself on his native 
sovereign, by excommunicating Joanna, and giving her 
kingdom to the next heir, Charles of Durazzo. The 



272 



THE GREAT SCHISM. 



beautiful queen, after losing her second husband, Louis 
of Tarentum, had been captivated by the handsome 
person of James of Arragon, son of the deposed king of 
Majorca, 1 and being a third time left a widow, was now 
married to Otho of Brunswick. Neither of her four 
marriages bringing any child 1 the succession was settled 
on Charles, a descendant of Charles the Lame, whom 
the queen had loaded with many favours. This prince 
the pope invited to Home, and there crowning him king 
of Sicily (Naples) received in return the promise of 
Capua, with one-third of the kingdom, for his own 
nephew. To sustain the war thus guiltily set on foot, 
the pope stripped the very churches of their wealth, 
while the queen purchased the aid of France, by trans- 
ferring the succession to the king's brother, Louis of 
Anjou. Clement as lord paramount, ratified the act, and 
crowned him by anticipation at Avignon (a.d. 1382). 

Charles, however, supported by the Hungarian army, 
advanced to Naples, and defeated the duke of Brunswick 
in a decisive engagement. The queen was compelled 
to surrender, on terms which were perfidiously violated. 
Charles put his benefactress to death in the castle of 
Muro, and by exposing the body at Naples, certified the 
world that her life no longer stood between him and the 
object of his ambition. 

1 The island of Majorca was conquered from the Mussulmans by- 
James I. of Arragon, who erected it, together with the French province 
of Montpelier inherited from his mother, into a kingdom for his second 
son, also called James. James in. of this line was deposed by his brother- 
in-law, Pedro IV. of Arragon, and flying to France sold Montpelier to the 
king for a sum of money to recover his throne. He was slain, however, in 
the attempt, and his son James, after languishing in an Arragonese prison, 
escaped and married Joanna. Her refusal to give him the crown matri- 
monial separated them in a few months, and the prince, after various 
adventures, died 1375, bequeathing his claims to his friend and patron the 
duke of Anjou. 



ATROCITIES OF URBAN. 



273 



Naples received its new king with the usual welcome 
of the fickle Italians. The cardinals of Clement's creation 
had to burn their red hats and acknowledge the rival 
pope. Bishops and dignitaries were deposed and thrown 
into prison ; but when Urban appeared to claim the 
promised transfer of Capua, Charles confined him in the 
castle, till he had renounced the condition, and disclaimed 
further interference in the affairs of the kingdom. 

Urban' s temper, severely tried by this mortification, 
broke into the fury of a wild beast on discovering a 
conspiracy for his deposition among the new cardinals. 
He arrested six of their number, confined them in nar- 
row cells loaded with irons, and even subjected some to 
the rack. One of his victims, Adam de Aston, being 
an Englishman, was released on the interference of 
Eichard but the others were dragged about in the 
pope's train for several months, and finally put to death 
at Genoa (a.d. 1386). 1 One bishop, whose limbs were 
disjointed by torture, being unable to keep up on the 
march, Urban ordered his myrmidons to murder him on 
the spot, and left his body unburied by the road-side. 
The horror excited by these atrocious deeds induced 
some of Urban' s own cardinals, who were at liberty, to 
go over to Clement. The new king of Naples, whom the 
pope implicated in the pretended conspiracy, was so 
incensed at a sentence of excommunication and deposi- 
tion being thundered out against him, that he disowned 
Urban' s authority, and offered a reward of ten thousand 
gold florins for his head. 

The kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon, which at first 

1 Some accounts say that they were enclosed in sacks and thrown into 
the sea, others that they were beheaded in prison. Giannone adds that 
two of the heads were baked and reduced to powder, which the sayage 
pontiff had carried before him, along with the red hats of the offenders, to 
deter other conspirators ! 

T 



274 



THE GREAT SCHISM. 



acknowledged Urban, also forsook him. Clement had 
before received the recognition of the crowns of France, 
Scotland, and Cyprus, the courts of Savoy and Geneva, 
the duke of Austria, and some other German princes. 
The emperor, with the kings of England and Portugal, 
sided as usual against their political rivals : Hungary, 
Norway, and most of the Italian States, also adhered to 
Urban. St. Catherine of Sienna declared loudly for the 
Eoman pope, and, had the pontiff been somewhat more 
of a Christian, his party might have attained to a deci- 
sive preponderance. 

Which was the true Church, no pontiff, doctor, or 
saint can tell to this day : each excommunicated the 
other, with that affluence of cursing for which the papacy 
has so long been notorious ; but it is consoling to learn 
from their own divines, that no one was really the worse 
for it. The great schism, we are informed, did not en- 
danger the salvation of either side ; because, though no 
one can be saved out of the Church, and the Church is 
limited to the communion of the true pope, yet as each 
party believed its own pope the true one, all were by faith 
and intention within the Church, and so in possession of the 
means of salvation. "What a pity that the same charit- 
able construction cannot be extended to other differences, 
besides those which concern the personal claims of two 
very unworthy prelates ! If two centres of outward com- 
munion may coalesce into spiritual unity by faith, why 
not two hundred? If the communion of Urban and 
Clement be alike valid and apostolical, to those who 
conscientiously accept it as such, why not the com- 
munions of Eome and Canterbury ? Why not (as was 
actually proposed during this schism) have a pope in 
every nation? If the national churches of Europe, 
though separated for forty years from external com- 
munion, were yet one, by reason of their attachment to a 



THE CENTRE OF UNION. 



275 



dogma which was indisputably the cause of their divi- 
sion, it is hard to see why the apparent divisions of all 
who cleave to Christ, — the undoubted centre and head 
of the Church Catholic, — may not be merged in the 
fulness of His all-reconciling love. Certainly it would 
be difficult to reject this conclusion, without sentencing 
one of the two parties in the great schism to perdition 
in the lump. Good men on both sides, we doubt not, 
survived the frantic anathemas of their opponents ; for 
whatever may be said at Eome, the pope is at best but 
a way to Christ, and if Christ can be found in the wrong 
pope, we need not despair of finding Him in his holy 
Word, without any pope at all. 

To gratify the Eomans, Urban reduced the period 
of the jubilee to thirty- three years, and the feast was 
celebrated by his adherents (a.d. 1390). He himself 
was removed by death the previous year, when all 
moderate men hoped the schism might be closed by the 
universal acknowledgment of Clement. 

The cardinals at Eome, however, afraid of another 
captivity of the See, hastily elected a successor, who took 
the name of Boniface ix. His virtues attracted back 
some of those who had fled from Urban : he conciliated 
the Italians by placing the crown of Naples, which 
Urban attempted to annex, on the head of Ladislaus, son 
of Charles, and won all hearts at Eome by the old ex- 
pedient of the jubilee, which he celebrated again at the 
end of the century (a.d. 1400). To purchase this favour, 
the city gave up the bannerets, and vested the absolute 
government in the pope. Boniface had a warm sup- 
porter in the emperor Eupert, elected on the deposition 
of Wenceslaus, but died four years after, it is said from 
the effects of passion, at being taxed with simony by the 
legates of the anti-pope. 1 

1 Boniface was acknowledged in England, which uniformly differed from 

T 2 



276 



THE GREAT SCHISM. 



On the death of Clement vn. (a.d. 1394), the car- 
dinals at Avignon bound themselves by a mutual oath, 
that whichever should be chosen to succeed him would 
resign when called upon by the majority of the college, 
in order to restore the unity of the See. Peter de Luna 
was elected and took the name of Benedict xin., but 
steadily refused to resign when requested, and was in 
consequence abandoned and besieged at Avignon by the 
French king for several years. 

The cardinals at Eome next repeated the same ex- 
periment. Innocent vn., elected, like Benedict, under 
a promise to resign, evaded the obligation with equal 
success. Angelus Corrarius, who succeeded him as 
Gregory xn., went so far as to propose to his rival a 
mutual resignation, but on a meeting being arranged 
between them, he drew back and refused to appear. 
It being now clear that neither pontiff was sincere, the 
cardinals of both withdrew their obedience, and at a 
united meeting resolved to summon a General Council at 
Pisa. Both popes were invited to attend, but neither 
appearing, the council pronounced them schismatics and 
heretics, and by definitive sentence excommunicated and 
deposed them both (a.d. 1409). This council was attended 

France and Scotland whenever a difference was possible, and his conduct 
with respect to the archbishopric of Canterbury gives a curious illustra- 
tion of the papal authority as then administered. Richard n., having 
illegally exiled Arundel, wrote to the pope that he was dead (a fate which 
he fully expected his emissaries to ensure), and, in violation of his own 
statutes, requested Boniface to appoint Roger Walden to the see by " pro- 
vision." Arundel, however, appeared at Rome safe and sound, when the 
pope, afraid of losing Richard, translated the archbishop to St. Andrews 
(where his authority was not acknowledged), and having so vacated the 
see, bestowed it as the king desired. At the same time, he told Arundel 
that all should be annulled whenever his friends might be in power again. 
Arundel, of course, never attempted to take possession of St. Andrews, 
but, returning to England in company with Henry iv., he re-occupied 
Canterbury in his own right, treating Walden as a mere usurper. 



COUNCIL OF PISA. 



277 



by nearly 200 bishops, a vast number of abbots and 
other ecclesiastics, besides the ambassadors of Germany, 
England, France, Sicily, and other States. The emperor 
refused to concur in the decree, on the ground that the 
cardinals had no power to call a council, nor a council to 
judge the pope, but both points being affirmed by a vast 
majority, the See was declared vacant. The cardinals 
then entering into conclave, elected Peter of Candia, a 
Friar Minorite, who took the name of Alexander v. 
He died the same year at Bologna, not without suspicion 
of poison (a. d. 1410), and Cardinal Baltazar Cossa, 
who commanded at Bologna as legate, securing the 
votes of the conclave by force or by fraud, became pope 
by the title of John xxiii. 1 

This cardinal is said to have been really chosen 
at the previous vacancy, but though twice elevated 
to the Eoman pontificate, it is admitted by all that he 
was not actuated, even in appearance, by any sense of 
religion, and was wholly disqualified for the ministry. 
Made a clerk in his youth without any spiritual vocation, 
he amused himself by toning pirate, and in his nocturnal 
expeditions acquired the character of great daring. His 
private life was deeply stained by immorality, but these 
objections did not prevent his acquiring and retaining 
many friends, in an age when even outward decency was 
no longer demanded in a powerful ecclesiastic. He 
received the valuable support of the new emperor Sigis- 
mund, but being involved in a severe struggle with 

1 It is generally stated that he bribed the cardinals of Gregory's 
creation with large sums of money. His biographer, Platina, attributes 
his success to the forces at his command, which overawed the conclave. 
Another writer says, that the cardinals not being able to agree, desired 
Cossa to choose for them, who immediately flung the papal mantle on his 
own shoulders, crying, " I am pope !" — Bower, vii. 132. At a time when 
the chair of St. Peter seemed to have more to do with fighting than 
praying, the pirate-cardinal might be an eligible occupant. 



278 



THE GREAT SCHISM. 



Ladislaus, king of Naples, lie was driven out of Borne 
and obliged to resort to another council to assert his 
authority. Much to his mortification, the emperor in- 
sisted on its assembling at Constance, in Switzerland, an 
imperial city, where he determined to unite the Chris- 
tian powers in a resolute effort to extinguish the schism, 
and reform the Church. 

John refused to attend till he had exacted from 
the magistrates an oath of obedience to his own 
orders both in spirituals and temporals ; but the con- 
cession availed him little in the end. All the leading 
ecclesiastics and princes of Europe appeared, in person 
or by proxy. Thirty cardinals, four hundred bishops, 
abbots, and other prelates, with a vast concourse of 
princes, lords, and ambassadors, swelled the assembly. 
The deposed antipopes, Gregory and Benedict, both sent 
their nuncios. The emperor Sigismund was there in 
person, and the crowns of France and England sent 
their envoys. The total number, including the different 
retinues, was not less than forty-thousand persons, and 
it seemed that such a parliament of the Church must at 
last determine the questions which agitated Europe. 

The council assembled under the presidency of 
John xxiii., pope by an uncontested election to the 
vacancy created by the decree of the previous council. 
Nevertheless, the cardinals determined that peace could 
only be restored by all three pontiffs resigning then- 
pretensions. John acquiesced, but soon after he slipped 
out of Constance disguised as a soldier, and taking 
refuge with the duke of Austria, bade defiance to the 
council. His host, with the perfidy of the times, sur- 
rendered him to the emperor, and he was brought back a 
prisoner, charged with simony and neglect of the sacred 
offices. A long list of darker crimes was suppressed out 
of respect to the chair of St. Peter. He was solemnly 



COUNCIL OP CONSTANCE. 



279 



deprived of the pontificate the 26th of July, 1416, and 
committed to close custody. 1 

Gregory's turn came next. His legates insisted on 
the council being formally convoked anew in his name ; 
and this condition being complied with, they produced 
his resignation ; but by his express direction the act was 
delivered to the emperor and not to the council. It 
now remained to dispose of Peter de Luna, or Bene- 
dict xiii., who had retired into Spain, where he was 
protected by the king of Arragon. The emperor went in 
person to Narbonne to bring them to reason, but Bene- 
dict coolly replied, that the schism being at an end by 
the retirement of the antipopes, nothing more was 
necessary than for the whole Church to return to his 
obedience, as the true and undoubted Yicar of Christ ! 
"When his patron was persuaded to join the other 
powers, he threw himself into a fortified rock at the 
mouth of the Ebro, and there, excommunicating all the 
world, maintained his empty pontificate to the day of his 
death (a.d. 1424). Even then he bound his four cardinals 
(whom he had created when deserted by the others) 
to make a new election, and as they disagreed in their 
choice, the schism was feebly prolonged by two succes- 
sors, styled Clement toe. and Benedict xiv. The latter 
disappeared without a struggle, and Clement was only 
acknowledged by Alphonso of Arragon, on whose requi- 
sition he resigned his dignity, July 26, 1429. 

Meanwhile, the Council of Constance, after summoning 

1 John was treated at first with a severity which provoked a reaction in 
his favour. Many contended that a pope conld not be deposed except for 
heresy, and Balthazar was only wicked: his orthodoxy was unimpeachable. 
Being released at the intercession of the republic of Florence, he was urged 
to reclaim the tiara, but the soldier had had enough of the pontifical 
dignity. He preferred to make friends with his successor, and, in spite of 
Ms notorious crimes, he was appointed dean of the Sacred College, with 
rank next to the pope, which he enjoyed till his death, December, 1119. 



280 



THE GEE AT SCHISM. 



De Luna to appear, pronounced him excommunicate and 
deposed. Then decreeing a new election, the cardinals of 
the three obediences, amounting to twenty-one or twenty- 
three, with six prelates out of each of the five nations 
who attended the council, entered into conclave, and 
with surprising rapidity agreed upon the cardinal Odo 
di Colonna, who was forthwith consecrated and crowned 
by the name of Martin v. (21st November, 1417.) 

With this pope terminated the schism that had so 
long scandalised the Church, and filled the world with 
desolation and war. The council which completed this 
difficult task, sat from the 16th November, 1414, to the 
22nd April, 1418, and by express decree, no less than 
by actually deposing three popes, established the supe- 
riority of a council to all individuals whatsoever, not 
excepting the successor of St. Peter. Their acts were 
confirmed by Martin, and so published with all the 
authority known to the Latin Church. Nevertheless, 
the council was no sooner dissolved than the slippery 
pontiffs returned to their infallibility, and the whole 
question came over again. 

In restoring the integrity of the papacy, the council 
supposed they were securing the unity of the Church ; 
but an enemy whom they knew not was among them, 
and already preparing a more formidable schism. It 
was at Constance that the Church of Eome came face to 
face with the Bible. Many of its preachers had suffered 
death from the bishops and inquisitors ; popes had pro- 
claimed a crusade against them ; but these were the acts 
of individual tyrants. It remained to be seen what the 
assembled Church would say to Wiclif 's grand maxim, 
" The Scripture only is true." By adopting it, the 
council would have obtained at once a perfect standard 
for the reformation of all abuses, whether in discipline or 
doctrine ; but nothing was further from the intention of 



JOHN WICLIF. 



281 



these reformers than to admit even a question on matters 
of doctrine. The Church's doctrine was sacred, though 
manifestly resulting in a mass of practical corruptions, 
and resting on the same false decretals which, in ques- 
tions of discipline, were freely impugned. The lords 
and prelates had assembled to vindicate their own pri- 
vileges, not to promote the salvation of souls ; and, as if 
to anticipate any suspicion of such a heresy, the council 
became a fiercer persecutor than the pope. 

John Wiclif, the evangelical doctor of England, had 
gone to his rest thirty years before, after standing forth, 
at the request of two orthodox kings, to defend the 
rights of the crown against papal aggressions. As one 
of the king's chaplains, he was employed to write against 
the pope's right to the tribute illegally granted by king 
J ohn. He was one of the commissioners sent to treat 
with the papal representatives at Bruges (a.d. 1374), 
when Gregory xi. was obliged to give up the reservations. 
At Oxford, where he was professor of divinity, he had 
exposed, with righteons severity, the enormous abuses 
of the mendicant friars. In all this Wiclif was supported 
by the general voice of his countrymen, clergy no less 
than laymen. Gregory had to chide the English prelates 
for their remissness in detecting his heresies, and to urge 
the king and the university to bring him to punishment. 
When at last convened before the archbishop, he was 
dismissed with an admonition, and returned to his 
benefice. By the university, the papal bull was treated 
with profound contempt. In the great schism, when 
Wiclif saw " the head of Antichrist cloven in twain, 
and each part fighting against the other," he earnestly 
advocated the suppression of the papacy altogether, in- 
sisting on the sufficiency of the Old and New Testa- 
ments to guide the Church. After this, he attacked 
the doctrines of transubstantiation, auricular confession. 



282 



THE GREAT SCHISM. 



excommunication, indulgences, and masses for the dead. 
But the moment he entered on these doctrinal questions, 
his patrons changed their countenance. The Duke of 
Lancaster deserted him at once; the chancellor and 
twelve doctors of Oxford condemned his tenets, and he 
was obliged to quit the university. Still, he died 
unmolested in his parsonage (a.d. 1384), and the uni- 
versity attested, under its common seal, that his life 
was free from blame. 1 His teaching was so effectual 
that, twelve years after his death, the archbishop of 
Canterbiuy complained that the whole university was 
touched with heretical pravity. 2 

Wiclif 's great work — and his great offence- — was the 
translation and diligent circulation of the Holy Scrip- 
tures. " The Scripture only is true," was his oft- 
repeated maxim; in this lay his unpardonable crime 
with those who wielded the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 
Much pains have been wasted in comparing the par- 
ticular tenets of Wiclif, and other early reformers, with 
the doctrines of modern Protestants. The comparison is 
valuable in showing the growth of evangelical views, 
from the first effort at shaking off the papal yoke down 
to the present matured enunciations of definite truth. 
It is worse than worthless, when advanced to depreciate 
the forerunners of the Eeformation, or to deprive their 
sufferings of the sympathy of the Protestant world. 
The ground of their battle with the papacy was ex- 
pressed in "Wiclif s golden maxim, " The Bible only is 
true." It was never the particular doctrine, so much as 
the authority for determining all doctrine, which formed 
the question on which they suffered. The position of 
the ecclesiastical authorities was, that all men are bound 

* Lewis's » Life of Wiclif," p. 113. Collection 28. 
2 This complaint seems to dispose of the objections brought against 
the genuineness of the testimonial produced at the council of Constance. 



> 



RULE OF FAITH. 



283 



to accept the faith and determination of Holy Church. 
No opinion, however irreligious, was culpable until the 
Church condemned it ; and to persist in any opinion, 
however reasonable, after the Church had decided 
against it, was heresy. The law of the Church, like 
the law of the land, was to be obeyed, not argued about. 
To deny her authority was heresy, just as to deny the 
king's authority was treason. The two offences, indeed, 
were deemed strictly analogous, and treated in the same 
way — pardoned to the ignorant, on submission and 
recantation, but calling for death when repeated. 1 
Wiclif, on the other hand, maintained that the Church 
could neither add to, nor take away from, Scripture. 
The Word, and not the Church, is the ultimate authority 
in all questions of faith ; a Christian is to believe for 
his salvation what is revealed to his own apprehension 

1 The nature of the controversy is well illustrated in Arundel's examina- 
tion of Lord Cobham. The accused delivered in a written confession of 
his faith on certain articles, naturally and properly adopting so much of 
the received language of the Church, as he could at all reconcile with Scrip- 
ture. Thus, he confessed the presence of Christ in the sacrament, in lan- 
guage which to many ears sounds completely Romish. But Arundel knew 
better. Admitting the confession, so far as it went, to be " Catholic 
enough," he proceeded to press his prisoner with the determination of 
Holy Church in regard to transubstantiation, the disappearance of the 
substance of bread, and the remaining of the accidents. These are philo- 
sophical explanations, for which no Scripture was ever pretended ; but, 
for that very reason, they formed the best test of " heresy," in the Church 
sense of the word. Accordingly, the archbishop put them to Cobham as 
" the faith and determination of Holy Church," following them up with 
the necessity of confession, the authority of the pope, and the worship of 
relics. The most ignorant prelate could never think these the most im- 
portant articles of the Christian faith, but they afforded the readiest test 
of distinguishing between submission to the Church and submission to the 
Bible. Therefore, it was demanded after each, " How feel ye this article? " 
Having in this way extracted the fact that Cobham did not accept the 
authority of the Church, it was of no consequence how far he concurred in 
her Faith. He was a heretic ; and, as such, was consigned to the flames. 
The Process is printed at length in Dr. Hook's "Lives of the Arch- 
bishops," iv. 512. 



284 



THE GREAT SCHISM. 



in Holy Scripture, and not to surrender his convictions 
save to further instruction from the same source. More- 
over, he contended that no human conclusions, not 
excepting the pope's, were infallible ; they were only to 
be accepted in so far as they professed to expound the 
Scripture, and were always to be tried by that only 
infallible test. This was the broad ground on which 
Wiclif and his followers joined issue with the authorities 
of the Church, and the questions of the day sink into 
insignificance beside the grand principle so presented 
for all times and controversies. 

It is only by keeping this principle in mind that we 
can understand the apparent vacillation both of per- 
secutors and reformers. Concessions were made at one 
time which were sternly refused at another. The same 
language was treated differently in different persons ; 
and those who at one time protected the reformers were 
found presently leagued with their persecutors. Thus, 
Wiclif was employed by the crown to resist the demands 
of the papacy, but the crown cared nothing for the 
Bible ; and when the insurrection of Wat Tyler afforded 
the clergy a pretence for ascribing the danger to the 
democratical principles of the evangelical doctor, the 
crown joined the Church to suppress the Wiclifites and 
Lollards. 1 It was then that heresy began to be regarded 
as treason in England. 2 

1 This name has given rise to much controversy, but is satisfactorily 
derived by Mosheim, from a lay fraternity, established at Antwerp for 
the burial of the dead. They were called Lollert or Lullert, from the 
German word lullen (to sing in a low tone) on account of the dirges which 
they chanted in the streets. From these the word was extended to the 
reformers on account of their singing hymns, as Beghard was, from their 
love of prayer. " Lollard " is, in fact, a " psalm-singer." It was only by 
a malicious pun that the papists connected the name with lolia, " tares." 

2 The first legislative enactment against heresy in England was Bic. II. 
c. 5. It subjected preachers of heresy to arrest and imprisonment till 



wiclif's ashes. 



285 



In like manner, though the council of Constance was 
called to reform the Church, one of its earliest labours 
was to brand the reformer who had defined heresy as an 
error maintained against the Scripture, instead of error 
maintained against the judgment of Holy Church. 
Forty-five articles imputed to Wiclif (with more or less 
truth), were condemned as heretical, his memory was 
excommunicated, and his dead body ordered to be ex- 
humed and cast out of the sepulchre of the church. 
This barbarous sentence lay unnoticed in England for 
thirteen years. Then, at last, after repeated orders from 
the pope, the officers of the Eishop of Lincoln invaded 
the sanctity of Lutterworth churchyard. The remains 
of the great reformer were taken up and burned, the 
ashes were cast into the adjoining brook, called Swift. 
The Swift " conveyed them to the Avon; Avon into 
Severn; Severn into the narrow seas; they into the 
main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wiclif are the 
emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the 
world over." 1 

The council were not satisfied to wreak their ven- 
geance on the dead. The queen of Eichard n. was a 
Bohemian princess. On her death, her attendants, 
returning to their native country, dispersed the doc- 
trines of "Wiclif far and wide. They were embraced 

reconciled to the Church. Henry iv., at the instance of the Commons, 
passed the execrable statute De hceretico comburendo, which condemned 
anyone whom the Church left to the secular power as a heretic (obstinate 
or relapsed) to be burned. This punishment was first inflicted on William 
Sautre, by sentence of archbishop Arundel (a.d. 1400). There is no 
doubt that the clergy had taken advantage of the riots, to frighten the 
king and parliament into a notion that the tranquillity of Church and State 
could only be secured by exterminating religious liberty. This persuasion 
kept possession of the legislature through all the changes of the Reforma- 
tion and the Revolution, and has only slowly receded in our own century. 
It is hardly extinct at the present moment. 
1 Fuller's Church Hist. 



286 



THE GEEAT SCHISM. 



with great ardour by the queen- consort's confessor, John 
Huss. His sermons, delivered in the vulgar tongue at 
Prague, inveighed against the corruptions of the papal 
court, but left no impeachment on his orthodoxy. 
He was active in the cause of the cardinals and the 
Council of Pisa; but, when John xxiii. preached a 
crusade against the king of Naples, accompanied by the 
usual indulgences, Huss demanded — as Wiclif had done 
— whether it would not be better to promise men 
pardon for keeping peace and quietness among Chris- 
tians, than for slaying one another with the sword ? 
This was touching on what we have before seen to be 
a tender point. If the clergy insisted on the authority 
of the Church, the laity were no less concerned for the 
indulgences which cost them so dear. Philip of Yalois 
would have burned the pope himself rather than sur- 
render this imaginary treasure. Huss was soon cited to 
the tribunal of the Vatican, and the council had issued 
a peremptory summons for his appearance at Constance. 
The Bohemian, who, while inveighing against the 
papacy, cherished a noble confidence in the Church, 
unhesitatingly obeyed. He had a passport from the 
emperor Sigismund, guaranteeing a free passage and 
return. The moment he arrived, however, he was 
committed to prison by the pope ; and Sigismund, de- 
manding his release, was coolly told that emperors had 
no authority in questions of heresy. The pope himself, 
who had also given assurances of protection, remon- 
strated at a later stage, but equally without effect. 
The council which Huss had laboured for and trusted in, 
as the representation of the whole Church, laid down 
the detestable doctrine that no faith is to be kept with 
heretics, and decreed that neither of the safe-conducts 
should hinder the trial or condemnation. 

It has been contended that Huss was not a 



JOHN HUSS. 



287 



heretic, even in the acceptation of the Eoman Church. 1 
In the doctrine of transubstantiation itself, Eoman 
Catholic writers allow that he differed in no material 
particular from their own Church. 2 Why, then, was he 
condemned ? Obviously, as we have seen, because the 
test of heresy was not doctrine, but authority. Huss 
appealed to Scripture and the primitive fathers. 
His voice was drowned in derisive cries. He had 
openly wished that his soul might be with Wiclif 's, 
thereby impugning the judgment of the Church, which 
anathematised the Englishman. He appealed to the 
judgment of Christ in contempt of ecclesiastical 
authority. Would he retract these heresies, and promise 
to believe and teach in all things according to the faith 
and determination of Holy Church? Arguments the 
council could neither hear nor answer, without abandon- 
ing their own principle, and accepting the Eeformer's. 
Huss refused to retract conclusions which either he 
had never maintained, or which were not proved to be 

1 Bower's "Lives of the Popes," vii. 179-183. 

2 Transubstantiation was always the favourite test of heresy, not so 
much for the tenet itself, as for the authority on which it rested. Other 
questions might turn on the meaning of Holy Scripture, with respect to 
which the Eoman See was not unwilling to allow a considerable latitude ; 
but the "sacrament of the altar" was exclusively a question of Church 
authority. The point insisted upon was not the Presence of Christ, but 
the absence of the substance of bread and wine from the consecrated 
elements. This was emphatically a definition of Holy Church ; no scrip- 
tural authority was ever pretended for it ; hence it formed the most 
searching test of allegiance. This distinction is overlooked when re- 
formers like Wiclif and Huss are quoted as agreeing with the papal 
divines in the doctrine of the Eeal Presence. They adhered to received 
expressions as far as they could reconcile them with Holy Scripture ; but 
that they differed at bottom was always suspected, and was afterwards 
made apparent in Luther's tenet of consubstantiation. Thus, the early 
reformers could assert the real presence in words that would now be 
thought popish ; but, when pressed with the change of substance, they 
revolted. In like manner, the stories of their recantations often arise from 
their admission of one point being regarded as a general retractation. 



288 



THE GREAT SCHISM. 



contrary to Scripture. 1 For this he was pronounced an 
incorrigible heretic, degraded from the priesthood, and 
— after " devoting his soul to the infernal devils " — 
delivered to the secular power. Here the province of 
the council and the Church ended. To the eternal 
infamy of Sigismund, who now, at last, received charge 
of the prisoner, he ordered the bearer of his own safe- 
conduct to be burned alive the same day. The sentence 
was executed in the presence of the vicar and marshal 
of the empire, July 6, 1415. 

There was yet another victim. Huss was accom- 
panied by a lay disciple, a professor of the University of 
Prague, named Jerome. On discovering the perfidy of 
the emperor, Jerome affixed a protest to the door of the 
cathedral, and hastily left for Bohemia. He was arrested 
in the Black Forest and brought back to Constance, 
where, terrified by the other's fate, he is said to have 
recanted ; but repenting ere long, he publicly revoked 
his retractation, and suffered the fire on the same spot, 
and with no less firmness than his master (a.d. 1416). 

In the course of these examinations, it appeared that 
Bohemia had recovered, or retained, the primitive insti- 
tution of the Lord's Supper in both kinds. 2 For twelve 
hundred years at least after Christ, the cup was admi- 
nistered to the laity at Borne itself. 8 Pope Julius (a.d. 
336) declared it to be a necessary part of the Divine 
ordinance. 4 Leo the Great (a.d. 440) regarded its refusal 
as an indication of Manicheeism. Gelasius (a.d. 492) 

1 It was in vain for a suspected heretic to deny having taught the pro- 
positions imputed to him. The Church would not stoop to argue his 
meaning any more than the meaning of Scripture. She decided his words 
to be heretical, and retractation pure and simple was the only proof of 
submission. 

2 That Huss was the author of the restoration of the cup, is much to 
be doubted. 

' Bona de Reb. Liturg. ii. 18. 

4 Ap. Gratian de Consecr., dist. ii. 7. 



COMMUNION IN ONE KIND. 



289 



declared that the mystery could not be divided without 
sacrilege. Even as late as the Council of Clermont 
(1094), both kinds were ordered to be separately ad- 
ministered, except in sickness, when the bread might be 
dipped in the wine. It is not known by whom the 
practice of denying the cup to the laity was introduced, 1 
but it is admitted that it w r as not general in the Latin 
Church till a little before the present council. 2 Never- 
theless, it was now pronounced the law of the Church. 
Expressly admitting that Christ instituted the Sacra- 
ment in both kinds, and that the primitive Church so 
received it, the council ordained that it should be 
administered in one kind only, under pain of heresy ! 
The reason assigned for this insolent usurpation 
was to " avoid scandal and danger;" in other words, 
spilling the wine, and defiling the chalice by the touch 
of lay hands and beards. These " dangers," however, 
were well known when Christ said, " Drink ye all of 
it ;" and the audacity which could set aside a positive 
command on so frivolous a pretence, is another proof of 
the determination of the council to make the authority 
of the Church equal, or superior, to the authority of 
Christ. 

This was the only ecclesiastical u reform" attempted 
by this numerous assembly. Convened avowedly to 
remedy the corruptions of the Church, its energies w^ere 
exhausted in rehabilitating the papacy, burning the 
reformers, and mutilating the Sacrament. Martin was 
no sooner fairly seated in the pontifical chair, than he 
objected to any further reformation and, all being 

1 Thomas Aquinas, who warmly advocates the denial, yet mentions it 
only as the custom of some churches. — Aquin. p. iii. qu. 80, art. 12. 

2 Greg, de Valentia de Legit, usu Euchar. — Bower, vii. 172. Strictly 
speaking, the cup is received by none but the officiating priest ; but as 
every priest officiates at some time, the practical result is to exclude the 
laity. 

U 



290 



THE GREAT SCHISM. 



anxious to get home, the council was dissolved, with the 
promise of another in five years, on the 22nd April 1418. 

There were potent reasons for the pope's return 
to Borne. The state of Italy during the whole schism 
had been one of constant warfare ; the struggles of the 
French for the Sicilian succession deluged the south 
with blood, while the Yisconti lords of Milan, obtain- 
ing a ducal coronet, became all powerful in the north. 1 
The wars of Florence with Pisa and Milan, and of Yenice 
with Genoa, added to the confusion. Ladislaus marched 
an army to the gates of Borne on the death of Boniface, 
and by inciting the people to re-demand the liberties 
surrendered to the deceased pope, provoked an insurrec- 
tion which drove Innocent to Yiterbo. The Neapolitans 
were admitted into the castle of St. Angelo by Colonna, 
who, taking possession of the Yatican, was ironically 
greeted as pope (a.d. 1405). Ladislaus, who styled him- 
self lord of Borne, held the fortress till he had extorted 
a revocation of his father's excommunication and his 
own ; but the next pope embracing the French interest, 
he was defeated in a great battle with the papal forces 
in Campania (a.d. 1411) and again excommunicated. 
He purchased his pardon and restoration by abandoning 
the cause of the antipope, but again falling out with 
John xxiii., he suddenly marched upon Borne, and 
subjected the city to all the horrors of sack (1413). It 
was to secure the emperor's protection against this re- 
bellious vassal that J ohn xxiii. agreed to a council, and 
when his fears were removed by the death of Ladislaus 
(a.d. 1414), he endeavoured to recall his consent. Borne 
was in the hands of one Eraccio, and the States of the 
Church were usurped by local tyrants, when the council 
broke up. 

1 Milan was erected into an imperial duchy a.d. 1395, Gian Galeazzo 
Visconti being the first duke. 



THE PAPAL RESTORATION. 291 

Martin resided for some time at Geneva, and 
afterwards at Florence, before he could obtain pos- 
session of his capital. At the latter place his 
revenues were so disproportionate to his station, that 
he was insulted in the streets by the children singing, 
"II papa Martino non vale un quattrino." 1 The 
Florentines, however, succeeded at last in appeasing 
.the commotions at Eome, and the pope made his public 
entry into the city a.d. 1420. 

1 "Poor pope Martin is not worth a farthing." 



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CHAPTEE XII. 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 

Councils the States General of the Church — Jealousy at Rome — Cry for 
Reformation — France — England — Germany — Insincerity and defeat of 
the Reformers — Council of Pisa — Constance — Success of the Popes — 
Schism of Basle — Triumph of the Papacy — Fall of Constantinople — 
The Sixth Trumpet — Danger of the West — Rise of Papal Feudatories 
— Nepotism — Sixtus IV. — The Borgias — Neapolitan Succession — 
Julius n. — Military Pope — Bloody Deeds — Wealth — The De Medicia 
— Leo xi. — New Church of St. Peter. 

When the rising nationalities of Europe began to rebel 
against the Soman pontiff, the remedy that first sug- 
gested itself was a General Council. To General 
Councils the Church owed her canons and her creeds, 
and it was natural to refer the questions which had 
arisen under them, to the same authority. If the pope 
were the monarch, councils were the States-general, 
of Christendom; grievances which originated with 
the sovereign could only be redressed by their 
assembly. The note was struck when Philip the Fair 
appealed to a General Council from the excommunica- 
tion of Boniface viii. The emperor Louis followed the 
example against John xxn.; but in neither case was the 
appeal brought to a hearing. It was merely a form to 
take off the edge of the censure, and induce a compro- 
mise. Such an appeal was no more than a salve to the 
conscience, unwilling to obey yet afraid to revolt. The 



294 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 



pontificate stood before the council, and obscnred its 
authority. If the pope were indeed the vicar of Christ, 
how could he be overruled by a council ? If a council 
could correct or remove the pope, the communion of the 
Holy See was not more indispensable than that of any 
other bishop. 

These results were clearly perceived at Eome 3 and 
it was not till Eome was divided against herself, that 
a council was ventured upon. The point to be 
decided was, which was the true pope : but the power 
to determine that question implied a geat deal more. 
The councils of Pisa and Constance may be said to have 
inaugurated the movement for reform, which culminated 
in the council of Trent and the disruption of the 
Western Church. The cardinals were intent only on 
restoring the chair of St. Peter, but the emperor and lay 
estates intended, from the first, a reformation of the 
entire Church in its head and in its members. The 
language used within the council itself equalled the 
strongest expressions of the poor men of Lyons. 
John Gerson, the eloquent chancellor of the University 
of Paris, was nothing behind John Wiclif the professor 
of divinity at Oxford, or John Huss the preacher at 
Prague. Gerson was one of the first to expose the 
forgeries of the false Decretals. He attacked the papal 
court with the most scathing denunciations. " Theirs are 
the customs of Antichrist, not of Christ : we nowhere 
read that Christ or St. Peter conferred bishoprics, digni- 
ties, and lands." " As for the power of the keys, for all 
that is written in Matthew xvi., Peter received nothing 
but what is shared by the most insignificant bishop." 
" Gregory might style himself servant of the servants 
of God, because Gregory nourished the poor ; Gregory 
preached the Gospel ; Gregory delivered Eome from 
pestilence by his prayers ; but in the mouth of John, 



CRY FOR REFORMATION. 



295 



Servus servoram is a lie : let him call himself lord of 
lords, since he presumes to say that ho has as much 
power as Christ, the God-Man." This fiery orator was 
selected to preach before the council of Constance. His 
sermon laid down eight signs of the Church's ruin : 
1, Kebellion and disobedience ; 2, Absence of shame ; 
3, Immoderate inequalities in preferments ; 4, Luxury 
of ecclesiastics ; 5, Tyranny of prelates ; 6, Disorders of 
princes and states ; 7, Hostility of the heads of the 
Church to reform ; and 8, Novelty of religious opinions. 
Under the last head, he complained that every one pre- 
sumed to interpret the sacred writings and the dogmas 
of the fathers after his own pleasure, and warned the 
assembly that these things would be the destruction of 
the Latin Church. 1 

The chancellor of Paris was supported by the 
highest ecclesiastical authorities in France. Cardinal 
D'Ailli of Cambray, one of the examiners on whose 
report Wiclif and Huss were condemned, inveighed 
with no less severity against the corruptions of his 
order. It was become a proverb, he said, that the 
Church was arrived at a state in which it was only fit 
to be ruled by reprobates. The simony of the apostolic 
chamber was exposed by one of its secretaries, Nicholas 
de Clemangis. He asserts that some ecclesiastics held 
500 benefices, and that others were at one and the same 
time canons regular, canons secular, and monks, wearing 
the habits and enjoying the rights, offices, and benefices 
of all three orders. 

Bolder language still was held in England. The 
" Golden Mirror," a work which enjoyed extensive cir- 
culation on the Continent, exposed the vices of the papal 
court with unsparing hand, and among the English eccle- 

1 L'Enfant Hist. Cone. Const, vii. — Waddington, eh. xxiv. 



296 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 



siastics present both at Pisa and Constance Eobert Hallam 
bishop of Salisbury was a sturdy reformer. The German 
writers lashed the monks and clergy with equal vigour ; 
the cathedrals, they said, were dens of robbers, the 
monasteries were taverns, and the nunneries something 
worse. 1 The emperor Sigismund demanded extensive 
reforms, and none but the Italians who profited by the 
pontifical corruptions ventured a word in their defence. 

Still the Italians triumphed, and the corruptions 
remained practically untouched, because their opponents 
with all their zeal were utterly wanting in principle. 
They felt the evils that pressed on themselves, and even 
quoted Scripture against the wrong- doers ; but the 
moment Scripture was carried farther than they liked, 
they turned upon its exponents and burned them as 
heretics. Wiclif struck at the root of the whole system 
in denying the headship of Eome, impugning auricular 
confession and transubstantiation, by which the priest- 
hood sustained their ascendancy, and stigmatising their 
reckless excommunications as £< feigned censures in- 
flicted by Antichrist's jurisdiction." He put the open 
Bible into the hands of the laity, and bade them read 
for themselves what the Church and the Gospel of Christ 
really are. Therefore, D'Ailli and Gerson execrated 
Wiclif, and consigned his disciples Huss and Jerome to 
the flames. To reform the Church without touching its 
authority was the dream of these selfish theorists. They 
were trying to gather grapes of thorns and figs of thistles. 
It was not till the corruptions of the Church were traced 

1 Langenstein's Consilium Pacis, ap. Von der Hardt, Cone. Cons. torn. ii. 
So also Gerson in his Sermon at the Synod of Kheims, " Utinam nulla 
sint monasteria mulierum, quse facta sunt prostibula meretricum et pro- 
hibeat adhuc deteriora Deus !" The accusation is repeated in still stronger 
terms by Clemangis — " Ut hodie idem sit puellam velare quod et publice 
ad scortandum exponere." — De Ruina Eccl. xxvi. ap. Von der Hardt, Cone. 
Cons. torn. i. 



PROCRASTINATION OF THE POPES. 



297 



to the false doctrines propounded by its authority, and 
the Word of God was honestly accepted as the true 
standard of faith, that any real reformation became pos- 
sible. Till then, the so-called Eeformers halted between 
two opinions, and were worsted in every collision. 

The Council of Pisa bound the new pope by oath not 
to dissolve the synod till a reformation had been com- 
pleted ; but Alexander dismissed them with a few vague 
promises, which were never fulfilled. At Constance a 
committee of reform was appointed (15th June 1415), 
and was ready to report by the end of 1417 ; but the 
see being then declared vacant, the cardinals demanded 
to proceed to an election before any other business. 
The demand was supported by the Italians and Spaniards, 
who insisted that the Church could do nothing without 
its head. The English and Germans, on the other hand, 
thought that if the Church could depose its head and 
create another, it might take measures in the interval to 
prevent the recurrence of a similar necessity. This 
practical view was warmly supported by the emperor ; 
but the French, either jealous of the victors of Agin- 
court, or captives to a " remorseless logic," embraced 
the opposite side. Admitting the principle of the 
papacy, no other course, indeed, was consistent ; so the 
bishop of Salisbury being removed by death, the English 
and Germans reluctantly yielded their consent, and the 
emperor was defeated. Still he succeeded in binding 
the new pope to proceed with the reformation, and the 
report of the committee was presented (30th Oct., 
1417), before his election . 

It contained eighteen recommendations for the re- 
form of the leading abuses of the papacy : they would 
have passed by a large majority, but this was the last 
occasion when the chair was occupied by the cardinal 
Dean. At the next session it was taken by pope 



298 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 



Martin v., who, promising every assistance, immediately 
appointed six cardinals to revise the labours of the com- 
mittee. Divisions and delay ensued, till the council was 
in despair, and when all were sufficiently wearied, Martin 
published eight articles of his own, which granted no 
real reform, and left what they did grant dependent 
on the pleasure of the pope. He promised concordats 
with the several nations, but delayed their publication 
till the council was dissolved ; when they proved so de- 
lusive, that the French rejected theirs as an aggression 
on the liberties of the Gallican Church. 

Two points, and two only, had been achieved by the 
efforts of nine years : (1) the establishment of the pope's 
subjection to a General Council ; and (2) a law for the 
holding of General Councils at intervals not exceeding- 
ten years. Yet both were evaded without difficulty. 
The first continued to be stoutly denied at Eome, though 
even Eoman sophistry cannot escape the dilemma, that 
either Constance was a legitimate council which all 
are bound to obey, or Martin and all the succeeding line 
of pontiffs were no true popes. The second was inopera- 
tive, because it remained with the pope to fix the time 
and place of meeting. In the government of churches as 
of kingdoms, it is not argument but power which turns 
the scale. 

Martin held the see for upwards of thirteen years, 
during which he recovered the States of the Church out 
of the hands of the different usurpers, and amassed a 
large private fortune. 1 He found the Eternal City in a 
deplorable condition, the churches in ruin, the streets 
out of repair, the people in poverty. The pope, who 
was a man of business no less than of talent, speedily 

1 Before his death he converted his family mansion into the present 
magnificent palazzo di Colonna, where the spoils of ancient temples give a 
new significance to the name and cognizance of his house. 



PERSECUTION OE THE BOHEMIANS. 



299 



restored the place to such prosperity, that he was called 
a second Komulus. The castle of St. Angelo, with the 
towns of Ostia and Civita Vecchia, which had been 
seized by Ladislaus, were restored by his sister, 
Joanna n. This queen haying no issue, the pope sup- 
ported the succession of Louis of Anjou. The queen, 
who had adopted Alfonso of Arragon, changed her 
mind in favour of Louis, and the apostolic fief was 
subjected to the miseries of a second protracted war of 
succession. This misunderstanding with Spain pro- 
longed the schism of Clement Tin. till the year 1429, 
when the king haying come to terms, the antipope 
resigned, and his cardinals went through the form of 
electing the existing pope 

Treed at last from all shadow of check or compe- 
tition, Martin, like a true pope, proclaimed a crusade 
against the Bohemian reformers. This is always the 
pontifical reply to a secession, and it is the only reply 
that can be made with consistency. The authority of 
the Church demands the suppression of schism and 
heresy, and these can only be suppressed by the sub- 
mission or extermination of their adherents. The holy 
war was conducted by the emperor in person. The 
Bohemians encountered him under the gallant Zisca 
with signal success ; but they were unhappily ignorant 
of the depth of their own principles. Zisca copied his 
persecutors by turning his sword on fellow-Protestants, 
who carried their private judgment beyond his own. 
After his death, the Hussites listened to overtures of 
peace, and they were still formidable enough to be 
invited to a council summoned at Basle (a.d. 1431). 

Martin dying a few months before the council was 
opened, was succeeded by one of the most ignorant and 
presumptuous of monks. Eugenius iv. plunged at once 
into a quarrel with the council. The president was his 



300 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 



own legate, cardinal Julian Cesarini, who had been on a 
mission in Bohemia. He implored the pope to adopt a 
conciliatory course ; but Engenius feared the council 
far more than he hated heretics : he was determined to 
avoid the toils which destroyed John xxiii. A bull was 
published dissolving the council, with the intention of 
calling another within the papal dominions. The emperor 
remonstrated, and the council refused to separate : a 
General Council, lawfully assembled, could not be 
adjourned or dissolved without its own consent. They 
summoned the pope to appear in person, and on his 
refusal suspended him for contumacy. The pope 
annulled the decree, but the duke of Milan, marching 
upon Borne, to assert the authority of the council, the 
Eomans revolted, and Eugenius escaped with difficulty. 

This misfortune obliged him to come to terms, but 
another rupture took place before long. The pope trans- 
ferred the council to Eerrara, under pretence of meeting 
the*Greek delegates who were shortly expected at Yenice. 
The council, pronouncing the translation null, persisted in 
sitting at Basle. Eugenius opened his synod at Eerrara 
(1438), declared the " congregation of Basle" an unlaw- 
ful assembly, and enjoined the magistrates to disperse 
them. The fathers retorted by again suspending Euge- 
nius, and being thereupon abandoned by the cardinal 
legate, they chose the cardinal archbishop of Aries for 
their president. On the 16th May 1439, they pro- 
nounced it heresy to deny the superiority of a council 
to the pope, and deposed Eugenius. He replied by ex- 
communicating the whole assembly ; nevertheless, the 
council proceeded to appoint thirty-two electors, by 
whom Amadeus, first duke of Savoy, was chosen pope. 
Though a layman and formerly married, his reputation 
as a hermit overcame all objections. A deputation in- 
vaded his retreat on the lake of Geneva, for which he 



SCHISM OF BASLE. 



301 



had abdicated his own principality, and called him to the 
pontifical throne. Being consecrated and crowned by 
the name of Felix v., he was owned as pope in Savoy, 
Switzerland, Bavaria, and Austria; bnt the kings of 
England, France, Spain, Portugal, and Hungary, with 
the princes and states of Italy, adhered to Eugenius. 
This pontiff having translated his council from Ferrara 
to Florence, and there settled the delusive union with 
the Greeks, adjourned it to Eome, determined to sit in 
future only at the Lateran. The assembly at Basle 
wasted away from dejection and sickness : Felix removed 
it to Lausanne, but the meetings were almost nominal ; 
and when Eugenius had given place to a better man, 
Felix closed the schism by resigning his pontificate 
(a.d. 1448). 

In this contest the papacy practically proved its 
superiority over the council. The latter was deserted 
by the higher ecclesiastics, as soon as it became apparent 
that the great princes went with Eugenius. Not twenty 
mitred heads were to be seen, and though above four 
hundred of the clergy and doctors of law thronged the 
benches, their voice, like the voice of the people, was as 
yet of little power in public affairs. Some valuable 
propositions were discussed, which were afterwards, in 
different kingdoms, made the grounds of concordats with 
the Holy See. But concordats are but an armed truce : 
they exist only to restrain the action of an authority felt 
to be dangerous. It is simply to abolish the authority, 
and they become as superfluous as treaties of commerce 
under a system of free trade. 

The fate of the Council of Basle should have satisfied 
mankind that the chair of St. Peter is the insurmount- 
able impediment to the unity and reformation of the 
Church. Called to extirpate heresy, restore peace, and 
effect a reformation of manners, its doctrinal labours 



302 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 



consisted of a new article of the faith — the immaculate 
conception of the Holy Virgin — and an admission that 
the sacrament of the encharist might be profitable to 
the laity, even though administered in both kinds ! 
The former was adopted at the thirty-sixth session 
(17th September 1439), though it has only in our day 
received the papal imprimatur. The latter was guarded 
by* a proviso that communion in one kind was a 
law introduced with good reason, and was not to be 
altered without the authority of the Church. The 
Bohemians obtained the use of the cup by a concordat 
with the emperor (a.d. 1436), but the pope refused to 
confirm it, and the grievance continued for another war. 1 
Instead of promoting unity, the council was the cause of 
a new schism, and though asserting the authority of the 
Church, and presided over by two of the ablest and most 
deserving ecclesiastics of the day, 2 it was insulted, 

1 Under this decree two celebrants were appointed in some churches, 
one to administer to those who claimed both kinds, the other for the 
more dutiful children who were satisfied to obey the Church in preference 
to Christ. Nothing so perplexed the self-styled reformers at Constance 
as this question of the cup. Its disuse was an innovation of not more than 
two centuries old, and a palpable contradiction of the words recited in 
the consecration of the Sacrament. Gerson and his school must have 
been anxious to grant the reform, but single communion was a neces- 
sary consequence of the doctrine of transubstantiation. It was a Church 
dogma, not a Scriptural one, and had the further advantage of drawing 
a marked distinction between the clergy and the laity. Therefore Gerson 
withheld the cup. 

2 Julian Cesarini was a man of capacious mind, enlightened by study 
and practical employment in public affairs. He was one of the few 
Italians who foresaw the coming revolt of the scandalised nations, and 
one of the few papists who preferred spiritual efficiency to temporal power. 
" Though you were certain (he wrote to the Pope) to lose Rome and the 
whole patrimony of the Church, it were better to succour the faith and the 
souls for which Christ died, than to cling to castles and walls. Dearer to 
Christ is one single soul than all the patrimony of the Church, yea, than 
all heaven and earth." The council could ill bear the defection of such a 
champion. Yet the cardinal of Aries was no unworthy successor. He was 
born, says the historian (JEn. Sylv. de Gest. Bos. Cone. i. 25), for the 



TRIUMPH OF THE PAPACY. 



discredited, and utterly worsted by a pope without 
talent or address. Incessantly at war with his clergy, 
his subjects, and his benefactors, Eugenius wanted at 
once honesty and policy. No tyrant is reproached with 
more acts of cruelty and perfidy, no monarch ever gave 
stronger proofs of incapacity and imbecility. 1 That such 
a man should be permitted to triumph over such an 
assembly, shows how low the Latin Church had fallen 
under the yoke of the papacy, and how richly she de- 
served the flagitious successors, whose vices at last awoke 
the thunders of a genuine Eeformation. 

The dissolution of the Council of Basle left the papacy 
tmreformed, and more powerful than before. It was 
universally felt that one pope was better than two or 
three, and one persecutor than two or three hundred. 
Councils, which had been resorted to for liberty of 
conscience, had only rivetted the fetters more strongly; 
and when the Sacred College, by accident more than 
design, 2 placed a Christian and a scholar on the ponti- 
fical throne in the person of Nicholas v., there was a 
general cessation of complaints. The antipope laid 
down his pretensions (a.d. 1449), and Nicholas re- 
voked all censures against his adherents. The sixth 
Jubilee (a.d. 1450) was celebrated at Eome with 
unbounded revelry and superstition, and two years 

government of General Councils. He out -manoeuvred the Italians with 
all the address of a polished Frenchman, and when the plague broke out 
and he was advised to quit Basle, he exhibited the gallantry of his 
nation to equal advantage. His retirement would be the signal of disso- 
lution, and he remained at his post. 

1 Sismondi, Rep. Ital. lxx., Wadd. iii. 144. 

2 The levity exhibited in some of the papal elections is quite surprising. 
The new pope, called Thomas of Sarzana, was about the most unlikely 
candidate of the whole College, but a cardinal who meant to throw away his 
vote, exclaimed, " I shall vote for Thomas, because this is St. Thomas's 
eve." Others did the same, and Thomas was found to have the requisite 
majority. 



304 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 



after the citizens were gratified by another imposing 
spectacle in the imperial coronation of Frederick in. and 
his empress Eleonora. 

The western empire displayed this unwonted magni- 
ficence at the moment when the capital and crown of 
the East fell a prey to the Tnrks. The triumph 
of the Moslem arms in Europe was unquestionably 
due to the ecclesiastical dissensions of the Greeks 
and Latins. Constantinople, often threatened by 
Goths and Saracens, was first taken and sacked by 
the Latin soldiers of the cross. The first conquest and 
partition of the empire was effected by the sons of the 
Eoman Church, and received the sanction of its pontiff. 
Nicholas himself is accused of purposely delaying the 
succours designed for the East, in order to force the 
Greek bishops to the recognition of his supremacy. His 
menace at the jubilee, that in three years the unfruitful 
fig-tree should be cut down, hardly required the gift of 
prophecy : Constantinople was but too surely doomed 
by the treachery of apostates, the selfish policy of a 
rival Church, and the pusillanimity engendered by the 
cruelty, vice, and luxury of its own court. On the 29th 
of May 1453, the Sultan Mohammed entered by the 
breaches where the last Christian emperor (bearing the 
same name with the first) fell bravely fighting; and 
dismounting at the church of J ustinian, he transferred at 
once the crown and the altar to the faith of the false 
prophet. 

The catastrophe was precipitated by means of 
the recent invention of gunpowder, joined with the 
liquid and inextinguishable fire of the Greeks. The 
circumstances have been thought to meet the descrip- 
tion of the countless hordes of horsemen, that sallied 
forth on the loosing of the four angels in the great 
river Euphrates, and killed the third part of men by the 



SIXTH TRUMPET. 



305 



fire and smoke and brimstone that seemed to issue from 
their horses' mouths. 1 Certainly the Eoman Church 
presented at this time, and subsequently, a melancholy 
fulfilment of the succeeding feature in the vision : " The 
rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues 
yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they 
should not worship devils, 2 and idols of gold, and silver, 
and brass, and stone, and of wood : which can neither 
see, nor hear, nor walk : Neither repented they of their 
murders, 3 nor of their sorceries, 4 nor of their fornication, 5 
nor of their thefts." 6 

The Turkish power, which rose on the decline of the 
Arabic, attained to the seat of the Csesars, just 396 years 
from the time when Togrul Bey marched out of Bagdad 

1 Rev. ix. 14—18. 

2 Or daemons, i.e. not necessarily evil spirits but good, such as the " angels 
and saints " of the papal mythology. A bull of Alexander vi. (1494), 
canonising the English Anselm, declares it to be the duty of the pope thus 
to promote dead men to the worship and adoration of the faithful. 

3 It has been computed that a million of men perished in the crusade 
against the Waldenses, ordered by the Lateran Council, a.d. 1215. This 
was before the Turkish invasion. The Inquisition was established after it, 
and slew 150,000 persons in thirty years. The Jesuits have been thought 
to have caused 900,000 deaths by persecution ; 50,000 were hanged, 
burned, beheaded, or buried alive in the Netherlands under the edicts of 
Charles V. Adding those who fell in France, England, Spain, and 
America, it is calculated that more than sixty-eight millions of human 
beings have been put to death for offences against the faith or practice 
of the Papal church. 

4 Miracles, relics, and other impostures. 

5 See the " Golden Legend," Hallam's " Middle Ages," Gibbon's 
"Decline and Fall," etc., for the well-known union of popery with the 
most frightful licentiousness. " All the convents in Rome," says the 
historian Infessura, " were houses of ill-fame." 

6 To " rob men of their money " was, according to Wiclif, a main 
pursuit of the papal priesthood. The jubilee at Rome brought in an 
enormous revenue, and our own English Jubilee for St. Thomas of Canter- 
bury was not bad. The comparative table is familiar : — 

First year, Christ's Altar, £3 2 6 Second year, £0 , 
„ Virgin Mary's, 63 5 6 „ 4 18 

Becket's, - - 832 12 9 „ 954 6 2 

X 



306 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 



to the conquest of the East. 1 It now openly threatened 
the remainder of Christendom. A descent upon Eome 
and Western Europe was often imminent, and the popes 
were in general sufficiently alive to the danger. Nicholas, 
whose death is by some writers attributed to remorse for 
not adopting earlier measures, spent the remainder of his 
pontificate in entreating the Latin princes to unite in 
expelling the Moslems out of Europe. His successor, 
Calixtus in., set them an example by fitting out a small 
fleet, which, under the command of a cardinal, and with 
the co-operation of the gallant knights of Khodes, recap- 
tured several of the Greek islands ; but exhortation and 
example were alike fruitless. The spirit of the crusades 
was extinct. The western nations were no longer chil- 
dren, nor the popes their fathers. Each was occupied 
with its own political interests, and national rights had 
so often found an enemy in the papacy, that its most 
religious counsels were suspected of a political bias. 
Hence the Turks were not only not driven back into 
Asia, they were permitted to advance into Servia, and it 
was the foresight and promptitude of Calixtus that saved 
Europe by the victory of Belgrade, 6th August 1456. 

Still, it was easier to arouse the jealousy of the Tartars, 
than to unite the conflicting states of Eoman Christianity 
in a common bond for their faith and liberty. The Turk, 
in fact, was used as a check on the pope and the emperor. 
Some of the most precious liberties of the Church were 

1 The exact period indicated by the " hour, day, month, and year" of 
Rev. ix. 15, viz. : — 

One year = 365^ years. 

One month . . . =30 years. 

One day . . . =1 year. 

One hour . . . = J? year. 



—Elliot, Apoc. i. 493. 



396^ + ^, or 

396 years, 106 days. 



PERFIDY OF PIUS II. 



307 



extorted as the price of co-operating against the Moslem. 
Pius ii. exhausted his pontificate of six years in endea- 
vouring to awaken the Christian powers to the dangers 
which undoubtedly overhung them; but he had little 
success, one reason of which was the unblushing tergi- 
versation of his own conduct. As ^Eneas Sylvius, he had 
been secretary to the council of Basle, and was distin- 
guished for the zeal and learning with which he argued 
the superiority of a council to the pope ; but no sooner 
did the emperor espouse the cause of Eugenius than the 
politic secretary implored his Holiness's pardon, and 
turned against all his former principles. As pope, he 
surpassed his predecessors in asserting the majesty and 
infallibiKty of the Holy See, condemning all appeals from 
the vicar of Christ as impious and unreasonable. He 
even issued a bull of retractations, in which he charged 
the faithful to forget all they had heard from iEneas, 
whose name was heathen and his writings heretical, and 
listen only to the Christian father and orthodox pontiff 
Pius. 

This pontiff's zeal for the papacy induced him to 
apply to Charles of France to cancel the Pragmatic Sanc- 
tion. The king replied there could be nothing very 
wrong in a concordat, of which every article had been 
sanctioned by the council, and vindicated by his Holi- 
ness' s own pen. Pius renewed his solicitations on the 
accession of Louis xi., and that superstitious prince 
received the title of most Christian king for consenting 
to his request. The parliament and the university, 
however, protested against the surrender, and the 
Gallican Church continued to insist on its rights. 

Charles was greatly incensed by the pope's support- 
ing the Spanish succession in Naples, against himself as 
heir to the line of Anjou. This dispute had kept Italy 
in a state of war for many vears, and the frequency 

x 2 



308 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 



with which the popes changed sides, as their own interest 
or ambition dictated, contributed more than anything 
else to the failure of their repeated crusades against the 
Turks. 1 With the unbelievers threatening the coasts of 
Italy, the father of Christendom was seen directing the 
arms of Christians against each other for his own 
aggrandisement. It is little to be wondered at that the 
princes, his children, followed his example, and left the 
Turk to advance unopposed. 

Setting aside the inconsistencies inseparable from the 
papal .position, the immediate successors of Eugenius 
reflected credit on the chair of St. Peter. Nicolas 
was studious, devout, and charitable. Calixtus, though 
a scandalous nepotist, possessed great ability and ex- 
perience, and was the best canonist of his time. 
Pius was an elegant Latin writer, and perhaps the 
most accomplished and enlightened man of his day. 
He was charitable to the poor, and remarkably free 
from the standing vices of the Eoman court — simony, 
nepotism, and pride. He died in the act of leading out 
the Christian forces to arrest the long-threatened inva- 
sion of the Turks. 2 

After these, the lustre of the pontifical crown was 
perceptibly tarnished. Paul n., as a native of Venice, 
might have been expected to pursue his predecessor's 

1 Eugenius, after confirming the Angevin claimant, and supporting him 
in the field by a military force, acknowledged Alphonso to purchase his 
desertion of the antipope Felix. Calixtus, himself a Spaniard, revoked 
the bull of Eugenius, with the intention of placing his own nephew, Peter 
Borgia, on the throne. Pius reverted to the Spanish interest, and had Fer- 
dinand crowned. Paul excommunicated him for not paying his tribute. 
Innocent, again, having first tried to seize the crown to himself, called 
in the French : in this way the unhappy kingdom, with all the neigh- 
bouring states, were kept in constant warfare. 

2 It was this pope who remarked, that though marriage had for good 
reasons been interdicted to the clergy, there were far better reasons for 
restoring it. 



PAUL II. 



309 



preparations against the common danger. A confederacy 
against the Tnrks was one of the nnmerons conditions 
which he had sworn to in the conclave ; bnt the pope 
dismissed them all, with the remark that every engage- 
ment pretending to limit the Yicar of Christ is, in its 
own nature, irreligious and void. He began his ponti- 
ficate by a quarrel with the king of Naples, which 
embroiled the neighbouring states, and then renewed 
the crusade against the Bohemians. Having excom- 
municated and deposed the king George Podiebrad for 
insisting on the double communion, he offered the 
crown to Corvinus, who was defending the frontiers 
of Christendom against the Turks. For seven years the 
arms designed to guard against the common danger 
were diverted to a domestic struggle, in which they 
were happily defeated. 

While thus indifferent to the safety of others, the 
pope showed a morbid sensibility to his own. A 
literary society formed at Eome being represented as 
a dangerous conspiracy, he seized and tortured the 
members so that one of them died on the rack. Nothing 
criminal was ever discovered, but Paul was so convinced 
that ignorance is the mother of devotion, that he closed 
the schools, and exhorted the Eomans to content them- 
selves with reading and writing. He indulged his 
barbaric tastes by loading the pontifical crown with 
jewels, till it was compared to the turrets of Cybele, and 
by adding more scarlet to the trappings of the cardinals, 
as if to increase the resemblance of his court to the 
apocalyptic harlot. 1 His avarice urged him to reduce 
the period of jubilee from thirty-three to twenty- 
five years, but he was carried off by apoplexy four 
years before the anticipated profits could be reaped 
(a.d. 1471). 

1 Genebrard in Chron. Mornay du Plessis. 



310 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 



Sixtus iv. has the merit of founding the Vatican 
library, and of adorning his capital with many noble 
buildings, 1 but after a feeble attempt to pursue the 
policy of Pius n. he resigned himself to the more con- 
genial task of promoting wars and conspiracies through- 
out Italy, for the aggrandisement of his own relatives. 
He began the practice of erecting principalities for the 
papal family out of the domains of the Church. The 
barons and knights who had hitherto held of the see, 
paying an annual tribute, were divided as usual into 
Guelphs and Ghibellines, each party having its recog- 
nised chief in Borne. The Colonnas headed the former, 
the Orsini the other, and as these great families usually 
had one or more members in the Sacred College, the 
pope was confronted by political influences superior to 
his own. To counterbalance these great cardinals was 
the constant struggle of the reigning pontiff. Sixtus 
succeeded in investing his nephew with the princely fief 
of Eomagna ; but his designs upon Florence had a 
different result. In order to reduce this flourishing 
little republic to the pope, a plot was laid to assassinate 
the brothers De' Medici, who were then the principal 
magistrates. 2 Julian de' Medici actually fell by the 
stiletto, but Lorenzo escaped. The plot failed, and the 
archbishop of Pisa was hanged in the pontificals in 
which he had said mass for the conspirators the morning 
of the attempt. The pope was undoubtedly engaged in 
the conspiracy, but for the death of the archbishop he 
excommunicated Lorenzo, who had no share in the deed, 
and laid the city under an interdict till he should be 
expelled. The Florentines resisted, and a war ensued, 

1 His great work was rebuilding the bridge over the Tiber, anciently 
named Pons Janicularis, and now Ponte Sesto. 

2 The chief magistrate of Florence was the Gonfaloniere or " Standard- 
bearer " of the republic. This office was held in the opening of the 



ADVANCE OF THE TURKS. 



311 



during which the sultan approached unmolested to the 
shores of Italy. It was not till Otranto was actually 
stormed and captured (a.d. 1480), that the sanguinary 
pontiff listened to conditions of peace with his flock. If 
the death of Mohammed the next year had not com- 
pelled the Turks to abandon their conquest, Italy might 
have shared the fate of Greece, and the Church of St. 
Peter, like that of Sophia, might have been a mosque at 
this day. 

Sixtus, though a Franciscan friar, was one of the 
most scandalous nepotists that had yet appropriated 
Church property to family aggrandisement. Dignities 
and benefices were heaped on his worthless relatives : 

fifteenth century by Giovanni de Medici, who died 1428, leaving two sons, 
Cosmo and Lorenzo, each of whom was the progenitor of an illustrious 
posterity. 

I. Cosmo de Medici, died 1464. 
I 

Pietro de' Medici, died 1461. 



Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
| died 1492. 



Giovanni 



Giuliano 



exiled 1494. (pope Leo x.) the Magnificent. Sabriati. 
I I 



Lucrezia San Magdalen; )oni< i 



Giuliano, killed 
I 1478. 



Giulio 



Lorenzo n., 
duke of Urbino, 1519. 



Cibo. 
I 



Giovanni Sabriati, Innocent Cibo 



Catherine, queen of France. 



cardinal, 1517. 
1 



cardinal. 



Ridolfi. (pope Clement vn.) 



Nicholas Ridolfi, 
cardinal, 1517. 



Alexander, duke of Florence, 1531. 
Married Margaret of Austria. 



IT. Lorenzo de' Medici. 

Pietro Francesco, killed, 1477. 



Lorenzo n. 



Pietro Francesco ii 
I 

Lorenzo iii. 



Everardo. 

Giuliano 
(archbishop) . 



Francesco i 
died, 1587. 



Mary, queen 
of France. 



Giovanni. 
I 



Fernando n, 
I 

Cosmo in. 



Giovanni the Popular. 

Cosmo I. grand 
duke, 1569. 



Fernando i., 
cardinal, 1563. 
I 



Cosmo ii. 
I 



Leopold, 
cardinal, 1663. 



Carlo, cardinal- 
dean, 1615. 



Giovanni Carlo, 
cardinal of Tuscany, 1644. 



312 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 



his very valet received a cardinal's hat. His great 
talents never condescended to the distinction between 
virtue and vice. No amount of wickedness deterred 
him from his projects. He was never happy when not 
at war, and was said to have died of passion at the news 
of a peace concluded without his consent. 

No force could tame the savage Sixtus ? pride, 
The moment that he heard of peace, he died. 1 

Innocent vm. is chiefly remarkable for the profli- 
gacy of his private life, 2 and the renewal of the war in 
Naples. Having quarrelled with Ferdinand, he first 
offered the crown to Eene of Lorraine, then seized it to 
himself, then annexed it to the crown of France, and 
finally restored it to Ferdinand, who had kept possession 
undismayed by all his anathemas. His later years 
became remarkable from the flight of the sultan's 
youngest son to Ehodes, whence he afterwards proceeded 
to Borne. Bajazet, who succeeded Mohammed n., sent a 
large sum to the pope to induce him to detain his 
brother, and the father of Christendom actually con- 
descended to become the sultan's gaoler. 

The next pope was the infamous Eoderic Borgia, by 
whom the last remains of decency were trampled out, 
and the pontifical throne sank below the level of the 
Turkish seraglio. This bold bad man, though never 
married, did not choose, like others, to abandon the 
mother of his children, when invited by his uncle Calix- 
tus in. to exchange a life of military profligacy for an 

1 Noil potuit ssevum vis ulla extinguere Sixtum ; Audito tandem nomine 
pacis obit. — Bower, vii. 313. 

2 Seven acknowledged illegitimate children received from this pontiff 
the honours which others had accorded to their " nephews." It may be 
suspected that the two designations were practically identical, but at all 
events the public avowal of personal impurity in the Holy Father was a 
novelty at Rome. It familiarised itself with frightful rapidity. 



THE B0RGIAS. 



313 



archbishopric and a cardinal's hat. Along with the hat, 
he assumed snch an air of devotion, as to acquire in that 
depraved court the reputation of a saint. The numerous 
offices, benefices, and palaces, which he accumulated under 
four popes, enabled him to bribe his brother cardinals, on 
the death of Innocent, to elect him to the vacant chair. 
Then taking the name of Alexander vi., he threw aside 
the mask of sanctity, and, surrounded by children as 
wicked as himself, turned the apostolic palace into a den 
of lust and cruelty, not to be paralleled under the worst 
of the ancient emperors. He was the Nero of the popes, 
and, like Nero, corrupted all classes of society by his 
profligacy. His eldest son, who was created duke of 
Gandia by the Spanish king, and received the duchy of 
Benevento from his father, fell by the hired bravoes of 
his brother Csesar. This second son, the blackest monster 
of the whole, was first a cardinal and archbishop of 
Yalentia, but abandoning the sacred function he obtained 
a dispensation to marry, and converted himself into a 
soldier and a prince. The youngest son married a 
daughter of the king of Naples, and was created a 
prince in that kingdom. The pope's daughter Lucrezia 
scandalised the apostolical palace by three marriages, 
celebrated with extraordinary magnificence; but the 
court of Sardanapalus never equalled the shameless 
orgies, in which this beautiful poisoner continued to 
revel with her polluted father and brothers. 1 

It is a melancholy proof of the depravity which 
the abominations of Borne had diffused over Chris- 

1 "Roscoe has endeavoured, in his ' Life of Leo x.,' to clear the memory 
of Lucrezia Borgia from the load of infamous crimes imputed to her. He 
has opposed the testimony of a number of favourable witnesses of a later 
period to the accusations brought against her early life. The German editor 
of his book, however, is not convinced, but thinks that she altered her 
conduct for the better." — Ranke, Appx. i. 3. Such " conversions" are not 
uncommon in the history of profligate women who have lost the oppor- 
tunities of their youth. 



314 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 



tendom, that the courts of Europe seem to have beeu 
little shocked by a flagitiousness which no decent pen 
can describe. Neither princes nor prelates shunned these 
incarnate fiends. The whole family enjoyed honour and 
opulence, unchecked except by their own hand, and the 
hoary sinner at its head was permitted to dispose of 
kingdoms and territories, as the undoubted vicar of Him 
to whom the ends of the earth are committed. It is 
impossible to offer a more convincing proof of the real 
nature of the papacy. 

Troubled by no schisms, censured by no councils, 
harassed by no demands for reform, Alexander vi. 
prospered in his day. The only protest against his 
wickedness came from a rival cardinal, whom he had 
disappointed of the pontifical chair, and who, in 
ascending it as his successor, proved equally devoid of 
religion. His greatest danger was from the king of 
France, whom his policy thwarted in his attempts upon 
Naples. He had the incredible audacity to send pro- 
posals to the Turkish Sultan, on the ground that if in 
possession of Naples the French would certainly attack 
the Mohammedans. Bajazet replied in terms of great 
respect " to the most worthy father and lord of all 
Christians ;" but nothing came of the negotiation, beyond 
the payment of fifty thousand crowns for the sustenance 
of the sultan's brother at Borne. Bajazet offered a further 
sum of three hundred thousand ducats, to secure the young 
prince from French intrigues by putting him out of the 
world. The offer was not lost upon Alexander; and 
being shortly after obliged to transfer the Moslem pre- 
tender to the French, he took care, by his infamous art 
of poisoning, to bring about his death in their custody. 
The sultan's letters being intercepted and published, 
all Europe knew that the Holy Father was bribed by 
the enemy of Christianity to murder his unhappy charge. 



> 



THE NEAPOLITAN SUCCESSION. 



315 



The French king was so far from being deterred by 
the pope's opposition that he marched to Kome, and 
entering the city as a conqueror, compelled Alexander to 
support his claim. Cardinal delle Bovere, with others, 
implored the Trench to depose the pope, but Charles, 
preferring to make use of him, declined any intervention 
in Church matters. Proceeding to ^Naples, he gained 
possession of the kingdom (a.d. 1495). Alphonso n. 
exchanged his crown for a cowl, and his son Ferdinand 
fled to the island of Ischia. But the French triumph was 
short. Before the year was out, Sforza, supposing him- 
self safe at Milan, deserted the French, and formed a 
league with the pope, the emperor, the king of Spain, 1 
and the republics of Venice and Florence for their expul- 
sion. Ferdinand was restored, and soon after succeeded 
by his uncle Frederick, while the French were driven out 
of Italy. 2 

1 Ferdinand V. of Arragon, by his marriage with Isabella of Castille 
(a.d. 1469), united the two Spanish crowns, and succeeded in finally 
expelling the Moors from Granada (1492). Alexander bestowed upon him 
the title of "Most Catholic King," still annexed to the throne of Spain, of 
which he was the founder. 

2 The French claim rested on the bequest of Joanna I., who, being 
childless, made Louis duke of Anjou her heir (a.d. 1380), but the queen 
had previously settled the succession on her cousin Charles of Durazzo, 
who possessed himself of the throne, and put her to death (a.d. 1382). 
His daughter and heiress Joanna II., called also Juanella, executed a similar 
double adoption, in favour, first of Alphonso V. of Arragon ; secondly of 
Rene of Anjou. The former took possession, and was succeeded by his son 
Ferdinand (a.d. 1458), who died A.D. 1494. Rene, however, obtained the 
county of Provence, and bequeathed it to his nephew Charles of Anjou, at 
whose death his claim descended to Louis xi. of France. His son Charles 
vni. was instigated to revive the claim on Naples by Ludovico Sforza, 
regent of Milan, for his nephew the young duke Giovanni. Ludovico was 
conspiring to usurp the duchy : he obtained investiture of the emperor 
Maximilian by giving him his beautiful niece Blanche for a third wife ; but, 
being afraid of Ferdinand, who had married his grand- daughter to Giovanni, 
he invited the French king into Italy, and on his arrival put his nephew to 
death, and openly seized the ducal crown. The pope was pledged against 
the French by the marriage of his youngest son with the daughter of 
Alphonso ii. 



316 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 



The pope henceforth devoted himself to his infamous 
pleasures, and the aggrandisement of his no less infamous 
children. The murder of the duke, his eldest son, had 
been rewarded by the transfer of his prospects to the 
fratricide archbishop. Being appointed legate a latere 
to crown the new king of Naples, he proposed himself to 
Frederick in the further character of son-in-law and 
heir to the throne. The pope promised to divest the 
aspiring cardinal of his ecclesiastical character, and 
sanction the marriage ; but the king declining the un- 
precedented offer, the Borgias at once went over again to 
the French. The death of Charles left the crown to his 
cousin Louis xn., whose first desire was to be released 
from his marriage with the unhappy Joan, and retain 
Brittany by espousing the duchess Anne, the late king's 
widow. Next to this he burned to recover Naples and 
Milan, which he claimed in his own right. Nothing 
could be more opposed to the policy of the Eoman court 
than the establishment of the French in Italy, but 
Alexander sacrificed every public consideration to his 
family ambition. Ceesar was divested of his orders and 
sent ambassador to Paris, carrying the divorce and dis- 
pensation for the second nuptials. The king created the 
ex-cardinal duke of Yalence and knight of St. Michael, 
with a command in the French army, and a liberal 
pension ; he further obtained him the hand of a prin- 
cess, who, though not, as he had presumed to hope, of 
the royal line of France, was sister to the king of 
Navarre. 1 

Marching into Italy, Louis mastered Milan while 

1 She was a daughter of the Sire Alain, lord of Albret, whose son John 
obtained the crown of Navarre by marrying Catherine de Foix, sister and 
heiress of the late king. The offspring of this marriage, Henry, married 
Margaret sister to Francis i. of France, and of them was born Henry iv. 
of Navarre and France. 



PARTITION OF NAPLES. 



317 



the new duke Valentino reduced Bomagna, and received 
it in fief to himself. Piombino was added by force, 
and Urbino by fraud. Camerino followed, and the duke, 
who had taken for his motto, aut Ccesar aut nihil, 
ventured to aspire to the throne of Italy. 

Meantime, Naples experienced the astounding 
treachery which, in that age, passed among princes for 
policy. Ferdinand the Catholic, who already united 
in himself and his consort Isabella the crowns of Spain 
and the island of Sicily, secretly concerted the par- 
tition of Naples between himself and Louis. With 
this object he sent over troops under the great cap- 
tain Gonsalvo de Cordova, in the guise of auxiliaries 
to his kinsman and namesake ; and having thus gained 
admittance, the Spaniards turned their arms against the 
throne they professed to defend. Frederick surrendering 
to Louis, ended his days in a French prison; and his 
son, who capitulated to the great captain on condition 
of his liberty, was sent in like manner to Spain. The 
two conspirators then divided the spoil ; but speedily 
quarrelling, by another act of that duplicity which the 
Spanish historians call glory, the French were expelled 
from, Naples ; and the crowns of the two Sicilies were 
reunited on the head of the king of Spain. 

Valentino's career was brought to a sudden termina- 
tion by the righteous death of his father. It was an end 
every way worthy of his life. Alexander had concerted 
with the duke to poison a wealthy cardinal, in order to 
possess themselves of his treasures. The deed was to 
be perpetrated at a garden banquet given by the pope. 
Alexander and his son arriving much heated, called loudly 
for wine. In the haste the poisoned bottle was brought, 
and both drank of, it. The pope died the next day 
(18th August 1503), but the duke having mixed his 
draught with water, by taking instant remedies, narrowly 



318 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 



escaped with life. 1 His greatness vanished with its 
author; succeeding pontiffs deprived him of all his honours, 
and after suffering imprisonment at Eome and in Spain, 
he fell in an obscure affray at the petty court of Navarre. 

This man's life was one continued succession of broken 
vows, assassination, and violence; his dissimulation, 
however, was so perfect, and for a time so successful, 
that Machiavel extols him as a model for princes. In 
such commendations the pope his father has a right to 
be included, sinjce no prince ever committed so many 
crimes with impunity, nor so many robberies with 
advantage. His profligate subjects were content to pelt 
him with pasquinades. The Church was too dead to 
throw off the incubus of his terrible profanations. 
When Columbus astonished Europe by the discovery of 
a new world beyond the Western ocean, this scandalous 
pontiff was allowed to dispose of it in the name of God. 
He conferred on the Spanish monarchs the sovereignty 
of all their Indian discoveries present or future ; and 
when the king of Portugal complained that his own 
crown had received a similar grant from Eugenius iv., 
Alexander graciously drew a line down the map, at 
100 leagues west of the Cape de Yerde Islands, telling 
Spain to take the American side, and Portugal the 
African. Such was the unbounded power then accorded 
to a man of whom it was believed that he held nothing 
sacred. The bitterest, and perhaps the truest, of the 
satires uttered on his death, reflects at least as much 
reproach on the Church itself, as on the pontiff who was 
permitted to dispose of its ordinances : — 

Keys, altar, Christ — he gave them all for gold : 
He bought them first ; so with good right he sold. 2 

1 Another account states that the cardinal bribed the pope's seneschal 
to set the poisoned dish before his master instead of himself. — Ranke. 

2 Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum ; emerat ille prius, vendere 
jure potest. 



THE "golden period" OP JULIUS. 319 



The chair of St. Peter, after passing for three weeks 
to Pius in., nephew to Pius n., fell at last to the ambi- 
tious Julian delle Eovere, who, either from partiality to 
his baptismal name, or from the ambition to revive 
another imperial title, took the name of Julius n. 1 The 
spiritual character of the papacy was now quite eclipsed 
by its temporal attributes. The Holy See disappeared in 
the throne. Alexander and J ulius were monarchs much 
more than bishops ; the former treated his sacred func- 
tion with a contempt which, in times of ordinary decency, 
would have been a blunder no less than a crime ; Julius, 
with better policy, exhibited always a decorous solemnity 
in the imposing ceremonial of the Church, and made 
himself as formidable with the spiritual weapon as with 
the temporal. Still there was no longer any pretence 
of seeking power for spiritual purposes : that mask of 
hypocrisy was at last fairly thrown aside. To aggran- 
dise the Eoman state by conquest or treaty — to employ 
force or dissimulation, as opportunity offered — and to 
subordinate the restraints of conscience and religion to 
the advancement of political objects, were now the ruling 
principles of the Eoman court, as of others. The dif- 
ference was that the pope was less restrained by religious 
scruples, and more capable of calling in religious auxili- 

1 The secular character now openly assumed by the papacy is apparent 
in the frequent succession of pope's nephews. The nearest relations of 
the reigning pontiff were installed, as a matter of course, in the apostolic 
palace. An ecclesiastical and a secular " nephew " (who might often boast 
of nearer ties) became established personages in the court of Rome, one to 
assist the pope and bear the dignities of the Church, the other to found 
a family among the princes of Italy. The elective throne of the Church 
was thus converted to the uses of a narrow oligarchy, but as the last 
comers were naturally the weakest, each papal family suffered an eclipse 
on the death of its head, and the chair was disposed of by the connections 
of a predecessor who had gradually acquired weight in the Sacred College. 
Delle Rovere was nephew to Sixtus iv., on whose death the prize was 
obtained by Borgia, nephew to Calixtus in. In like manner, Eugenius iv. 
was nephew to Gregory xn., and Paul if. to Eugenius. 



320 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 



aries. Absolutions were always ready for his political 
friends, and censures for his political foes. If his tem- 
poral cheek were smitten, he turned the other, not to 
invite a repetition of the blow, but to wither the 
offender with its unearthly frown. This is the time 
which an English cardinal of our own day has distin- 
guished as " the golden period of Julius n ! ?n 

He was a better pope than his predecessor, simply 
as a military commander is more respectable than a 
luxurious debauchee. He exhibited the strange spectacle 
of the Vicar of Christ feeding his sheep by marching in 
arms, at the head of his troops, to capture towns and slay 
their defenders. This was no uncommon thing with 
inferior prelates. Bishops and abbots, who refused to 
soil their lawn by sitting in council or parliament 
when a cause of blood was to be tried ; — who never cor- 
rected heretics further than the rack, but when they 
were to be burned, handed them over to the secular arm 
with a pious entreaty to show mercy — had long managed 
to ride in armour to the field of battle, and command in 
the siege of towns and castles. They had maces hanging 
at their saddle-bows, to kill their opponents without 
shedding Christian blood. These bishops, however, were 
barons, bound to attend their temporal lord : it was new 
to see the pope, after struggling so determinedly for a 
sovereignty exempt from all human accountability, use 
it to fight his own battles like a duke or an emperor. 

This novelty, however, little troubled the Church's 
conscience. Thomas di Yio, cardinal of St. Sixtus 
and general of the Dominicans (called Gaietan — Caje- 
tan — from the place of his birth), was the most learned 
and respectable member of the Sacred College. He 
attended the council called in the Lateran 3rd May 

1 " Recollections of the Last Four Popes," by Cardinal Wiseman, p. 134. 



THE FIGHTING POPE. 



321 



1512, to curse all rebels against the pontifical authority. 
Councils no less than individuals were included in this 
anathema ; and to enforce it the cardinal-general thus 
addressed his mitred commander-in-chief: u That you 
may imitate, holy father, the power, perfection, and 
wisdom of God, gird yourself with your sword — that 
sword which is especially your own. For you have two, 
one in common with the princes of this world, the other 
peculiar to yourself ; and which none can possess except 
from you. Gird, then, this sword on your thigh (!) above 
all the powers of the human race, and march against 
errors, heresies, and dissensions. March and reign. 
March and prosper, priest and king, utterly scattering 
the nations that delight in war, and meditating and 
searching after the things of peace." 1 In the clang and 
crash of his military metaphors, the cardinal forgot that 
the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. His 
Church has often mistaken fire and faggot for the 
sword of St. Paul or St. Peter; but, although those 
apostles did indeed fall by the sword, they were 
expressly forbidden to smite with it. 

Whatever Julius thought of the apostolical function, 
to " scatter the nations that delight in war" was an em- 
ployment entirely to his mind. He said the Diet and the 
Conclave had each made a mistake: they should have 
chosen himself emperor and Maximilian pope. 2 The 
might that he showed and how he warred, we must 
leave to the chronicles of the several kingdoms of 
Europe. Suffice it to say, that his pontificate of ten 

1 Seckend, Ap. i. 2 ; Waddington's Luther, i. 145. 

2 He thought the emperor a fool, and commonly spoke of him as a 
" bestia." Maximilian was not more complimentary. " Immortal God 
(he cried), if Thou didst not watch, it would fare badly with a world 
governed by us two : I a miserable hunter, and that Julius a drunken 
rascal !" It is a curious fact that Maximilian aspired to succeed Julius, 
and actually offered himself as his coadjutor! — Kanke.. 

T 



322 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 



years was spent in campaigns which occasioned the 
death of ten thousand men ! 1 He reduced the lawless 
feudatories on the estates of the Church to their proper 
dependence on the Holy See. In alliance with the 
emperor and the kings of France and Spain, he drove 
the Yenetians out of the Eomagna (which they had en- 
tered on the fall of Ceesar Borgia), appropriated several of 
their strongholds to himself, and restrained the encroach- 
ing republicans to their islands. Then quarrelling with 
the French, he formed a new holy league with Spain, 
Switzerland, and Venice to drive them out of Italy. 
Milan was restored to Maximilian, son of Ludovico 
Sforza, while Julius obtained Parma, Piacenza, and 
Eeggio, heretofore fiefs of the empire. 2 The Yenetians 
insisting on retaining Yicenza, Julius concluded an- 
other alliance against them with the emperor, which 
death did not permit him to prosecute. 

As a monarch — the character he most affected — Julius 
far surpassed every former pontiff. If he fought without 
mercy, and appropriated without scruple, he governed 
wisely and well, and was rewarded by an unusual 
fidelity on the part of his new subjects. The escheat of 
Urbino, by the deprivation of Csesar Borgia, enabled him 
to found a princely house without any further alienation 
of Church lands. His talents and power were re- 
garded with awe by the neighbouring states. "For- 
merly (says Machiavelli) no baron was so insignificant 
as not to despise the papal power : now a king of France 
stauds in awe of it." 3 

As a bishop, Julius, though an immoderate drunkard, 
avoided the scandal occasioned by Alexander's contempt 
of holy offices. He managed to perform the public 

' Some authors raise the number to 200,000. — Bower, vii. 398. 
2 The rights of the empire were reserved, which afterwards occasioned 
frequent contests with the Church. 3 Eanke, i. 2. 



DEATH OF JULIUS. 



323 



worship with dignity, if not with piety. But his spiri- 
tual office was always second to the political. He 
excommunicated the French monarch, laid his dominions 
under an interdict, and was on the point of transferring 
the coveted style of "most Christian" to the king of 
England when arrested by death. Louis had recourse to 
the old remedy of a council, which actually met at Pisa, 
on the summons of five cardinals, at the instance of the 
emperor and himself: but Julius calling another at the 
Later an, interdicted the meeting at Pisa. The cardinals 
persevered under the protection of French troops, but 
only a few bishops came to their council, and when, 
after removing to Milan, they passed sentence of deposi- 
tion on the pope (21st April 1512), the decree was re- 
ceived only in France. The council expired on the Swiss 
occupation, and it was before a higher tribunal that the 
pope was summoned, at seventy years of age, to give an 
account of his stewardship. He left a million of ducats 
destined to a war against the Turks. The papal re- 
venues, which ordinarily amounted to 350,000 ducats, 
were doubled or trebled by his exactions. 1 He gave no 
benefice but to the incumbent of some lower preferment 
or office, whose post was again given to an inferior, 
and every one paid handsomely for his promotion. 
Another source of profit was found in the improvement 
of the coinage. 2 In his personal expenditure the pope 
was absolutely miserly. 

All this power and wealth passed, on the 11th March 
1513, to a successor as different as it is possible to 
conceive. The cardinal, Giovanni de' Medici, who took 
the name of Leo X., was a son of that Lorenzo de 5 

1 Under his successor it was reckoned at 320,000 ducats from tem- 
poral sources, and 100,000 from ecclesiastical. 

2 The giuli with which he replaced the old carlini have only lately 
given place to the current paoli. 

Y 2 



324 



STRUGGLES OF THE COUNCILS. 



Medici who so narrowly escaped the bravos of Sixtus iv. 
An archbishop in the cradle, and a cardinal at thirteen, 
he became pope at thirty-seven. Being devoted to the 
French interest, his accession produced the immediate 
submission and absolution of the king : the council 
of Pisa was unanimously repudiated, and the cardinals 
who summoned it asked pardon on their knees. Fran- 
cis of Yalois, succeeding to the French crown in 1515, 
surrendered the Pragmatic Sanction, and concluded a 
concordat restoring annates to the Holy See. The 
Lateran council had extinguished the insurrectionary 
spirit manifested at Pisa, Constance and Basle, and 
neither war, schism, nor heresy, disturbed the eight 
years of Leo's splendid pontificate. 

At Eome, this peaceful magnificence was doubly 
grateful after the two late reigns of terror and con- 
quest. Leo's delight was to spend in luxury the 
treasure which his predecessor hoarded for war. His 
education and tastes were worthy of a better man, 
and the time was not yet come when piety was re- 
quired in a successor of St. Peter. The point on 
which he was most content to follow his predecessor, 
was the completion of Bramante's ambitious design for 
a new Church of St. Peter. It was the age in which 
modern art attained its excellence in architecture, 
sculpture, painting, and music. A new expression was 
demanded for a worship which, undoubtedly, had vastly 
altered in substance since the days of Constantine. The 
artists were enthusiastic ; but the people were alarmed, 
and the cardinals indignant, at the proposal to destroy a 
Church venerated throughout the world, enriched with 
sepulchres of saints, and memorable for illustrious 
deeds. 1 Raphael and Michael Angelo had persuaded 



1 Ranke, 1, 2. 



st. peter's chukch. 



325 



Julius to overrule this opposition. The warrior pope 
caused half the old Church to be pulled down, and 
himself laid the foundation-stone of a new one (a.d. 
1506). The popular misgivings were destined to be 
realised in a way that no one expected. Leo gave 
himself heart and soul to the prosecution of a work so 
entirely to his taste. Enormous sums were levied from 
the several kingdoms of Europe, by monkish men- 
dicancy, for a structure designed to crown an uni- 
versal recognition of the papal supremacy. But the 
walls of St. Peter's had hardly appeared above ground, 
before another Temple arose and stood over against it. 
"A stone cut out without hands, smote the image and 
became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth." 1 



1 Dan. ii. 35. 



CHAPTEK XIII. 

THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 

Rapid Revolution — Strength of the Papacy — The Bible and the Press — 
Indulgences — Luther Condemned — Burns the Bull — Protected by the 
Elector — Adrian VI. — Zwingle — Clement VII. — Battle of Pavia — 
Sack of Rome — Death of the Elector — War of the Peasants — Protest 
of Spires — Confession of Augsburg — Truce of Ratisbon — Progress of 
the Reformation in Europe — Persecution — Paul in. — Attempts at 
Reconciliation — Council of Trent — Breach with England — Rupture 
between the Pope and the Emperor — Return of the Council of Trent 
— Triumph of German Reformers — Accession of Mary — Death of the 
Pope — Abdication of the Emperor. 

No event, since the publication of the Gospel, has pro- 
duced so wide and lasting a change in human affairs 
as the Protestant Eeformation. The rapidity of the 
revolution was even more marvellous than its extent 
and duration. It was almost compressed into the limits 
of a single life. Martin Luther may be called its first 
preacher, and before Luther died the Eeformation had 
reached its existing limits. The greater part of Germany 
and Switzerland, England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, 
and Norway, openly separated from the Roman com- 
munion. Holland followed quickly after, and then the 
Eoman reaction stayed the flood, and recovered what 
had been lost in the remainder of Europe. The three 
succeeding centuries have not enlarged the Protestant 
area; they have only deepened and matured the 
Protestant sentiment. They have supplied a succes- 
sion of sound and learned divines, but nothing has been 
added to the principles of the Reformers, who rose like a 
constellation in the sixteenth century. . 



328 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



So singular a phenomenon indicates the presence 
of a peculiar power : something must have separated 
that age from its predecessors, to enable it to set up 
a mark which no successor has been able to overpass. 
Papal corruption was unhappily not a novelty. The 
indulgences, which first provoked the expostulations of 
Luther, were an old grievance, and all his fiery de- 
nunciations did not enlarge the catalogue of abuses 
protested against for at least four centuries. The cir- 
cumstances were so far from being especially favourable 
to attack, that the papacy was apparently stronger than 
ever. The great schism had been healed, the councils 
humbled, the cry for reform was silenced, or confined 
to the peasants of a few Alpine valleys : hardly a cloud 
hung on the horizon of Borne. Her political prospects, 
too, had been seldom less embroiled since the triple 
crown first encircled the mitre. The wars of Julius had 
resulted in the virtual conquest of Italy. Leo's first act 
was a concordat with the French crown, which abolished 
the Pragmatic Sanction, and replaced the eldest son 
of the Church among her most dutiful children. The 
emperor was the sworn and willing champion of the 
Holy See. The most Catholic sovereigns of Spain and 
Portugal were subjugating new worlds to its obedience. 1 

i Ferdinand, king of Sicily and Arragon, married (a.d. 1469) Isabella, 
heiress of Castile and Leon : the conquest of Granada (1492) raised them 
to the joint sovereignty of all Spain, with which Navarre was incorporated 
(1512). Naples was added by conquest (1503). The title of " Catholic 
king," borne by some earlier sovereigns, was permanently attached to the 
Spanish crown on the subjugation of the Moors by the conquest of Granada. 
Christopher Columbus sailed to the discovery of America in virtue of a 
contract with queen Isabella, dated 17th April 1492, after his offers had 
been declined by the enterprising John n. of Portugal. This king, who 
ascended the throne in 1482, in 1486 added the title of. "Lord of Guinea," 
and soon after bestowed the name of Cape of Good Hope on the southern 
promontory of Africa, which his vessels under Bartholmo Dias rounded 
(a.d. 1487). In the same reign, Brazil, and an extensive empire in India, 
were added to the Portuguese crown. 



DISTINCTIVE ELEMENT. 



329 



The crown of England gained the title of Defender of 
the Faith by the young king's zeal for absolute, unmiti- 
gated popery. If Henry afterwards turned against his 
idol, it was not till after the Eeformation had been 
firmly planted in Germany, and begun to make pro- 
gress in England. The superficial writers who ascribe 
English Protestantism to the anger or policy of the 
crown, should remember that similar quarrels in former 
times had invariably terminated in the submission of 
the king, and the triumph of the pope. 

"What, then, was the distinctive element in the 
Eeformation of the sixteenth century ? It was un- 
doubtedly the circulation of the Holy Bible. Luther 
revived the maxim of Wiclif and Huss, that Scripture 
only is true. He was opposed, as before, by the un- 
changing dogma of Eome — the authority of the Holy 
See. The battle was fought on a well-worn field from 
beginning to end. In Wiclif 's days, however, the Bible 
was comparatively a sealed book. All his exertions 
could obtain only a limited circulation for his rude 
English translation. The masses were unable to read, 
and to the better-educated the labour of deciphering a 
voluminous manuscript was a serious impediment. As 
for oral pleaching, the pope's great army of friars and 
confessors were as a thousand to one against the Ee- 
formers. 

In the sixteenth century these conditions were 
changed. The fall of Constantinople covered the shores 
of Italy with the wreck of its religion and literature, 
and the western universities were brought in contact 
with the language of the ]N"ew Testament and the 
fathers. Greek was taught in Paris a.d. 1458 : the 
first Greek grammar was printed in 1476. Oxford and 
Cambridge caught the infection of the " new learning," 
and though the friars protested that to study Greek was 



330 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



the way to become a Pagan, and to study Hebrew the 
way to become a Jew(!) the students of both lan- 
guages so increased, that the English universities con- 
tained scholars who commanded the admiration of the 
celebrated Erasmus, at his visits in 1497 and 1509-14. 

This tide of scholarship began to flow just at the 
moment when mechanical ingenuity had provided the 
means of covering the world with the fertilising inunda- 
tion. John Gutenburg, the inventor of movable types, 
was born at Sulgeloch, near Mainz, a.d. 1397, and died 
1478. 1 About the year 1455, he printed the Mazarin 
edition of the Latin Yulgate ; the first book that ever 
issued from the press, and the first instructor of Martin 
Luther. It was a noble omen; and the Church of Eome, 
"howbeit she meant not so, neither did her heart think 
it," is entitled to the credit. In 1477 a Hebrew Psalter 
was printed at Soncino, the Pentateuch in 1482, the Pro- 
phets in 1486, and the whole of the Old Testament in 
1488. In 1516 Erasmus printed the New Testament in 
the original Greek. The Complutensian Bible, designed 
by Cardinal Ximenes, appeared in 1520, containing the 
Hebrew and Greek texts, with the Latin Yulgate in the 
place of honour between them. The Bible, of which 
Luther did not suspect the existence till he lighted 
on the Yulgate in his monastery at Erfurth, a.d. 1503, 
was now easily accessible to the literary classes, and it 
began to be studied by the leading minds of every 
nation with the utmost avidity. 

The precious stream soon overflowed upon the 
people. Luther published the New Testament in 
German a.d. 1522, and the Old Testament from the 

1 Faust and Schoeffer were his assistants : the former has sometimes 
been deemed the inventor, and other names are mentioned for the same 
honour, as Costar of Haarlem, and Menzel of Strasburg : but Trithemius, 
the first author who mentions the art, ascribes it to Gutenberg on the 
authority of Schoeffer himself. 



THE BIBLE AND THE PRESS. 



331 



Hebrew in portions till 1530, when the whole was 
complete. • Tyndal was but little behind with the 
English version. His New Testament appeared in 
1525, and before his crnel and treacherous martyrdom 
at xlntwerp (1545) he had finished, with the help of 
John Bogers, the canonical books of the Old Testament. 1 
Evangelical expositions, replies by the Eomanists, 
and rejoinders from the Eeformers, flowed in rapid suc- 
cession from the press. They removed the controversy 
from the synods of prelates, and the cabinets of princes, 
to the open field of public opinion. There the Bible, 
and the Bible only, spoke with the voice of inspiration. 
The Eeformation was the revolution of the Bible and 
the press. 

Its history is too extensive and familiar to call for 
repetition in this volume. Some nations it altogether 
emancipated from the yoke of Borne, others learned to 
assert political independence, while content to retain the 
spiritual bondage. These changes belong to the history 

1 The same year appeared the English version of Coverdale (also an 
assistant of Tyndal), professing to be taken from the "Douche " (German 
of Luther), and the Latin. This not giving satisfaction, Rogers was em- 
ployed after Tyndal' s death to edit his version from the original Hebrew 
and Greek. The Apocrypha was added from Coverdale. This was 
the Bible called " Matthew's,'' though the initials of Tyndal (whose name 
it was thought prudent to suppress) are subscribed to the Old Testament. 
It received the sanction of Henry vni., and was thus our first authorised 
version. It is the parent of the existing version, of which the following 
character is given by writers who are no friends to Protestantism : — " In 
point of perspicacity and noble simplicity, propriety of idiom, and purity 
of style, no English version has as yet surpassed it."; — Geddes' (Roman 
Catholic) Prospectus for a new Translation. " The peculiar genius, if such 
a word maybe permitted, which breathes through it, the mingled tenderness 
and majesty, the Saxon simplicity, the preternatural grandeur unequalled, 
unapproached, in the attempted improvement of modern scholars ; all are 
here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man, and that man William 
Tyndal." — Froude's Hist, of England, iii. 84. These quotations are bor- 
rowed from Mr. Plumptre's article on the Authorised Version in Smith's 
Bible Dictionary, ii. 1669. . 



332 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



of Europe : what our plan requires to be noticed, is 
the effect produced upon Borne herself. We have to 
observe how the popes, walking blindly forward to the 
destruction of their empire and their church, in the 
impotent attempt to excommunicate the intelligence and 
piety of Europe, stereotyped her corruptions, and sank 
into a schism. 

That the first preacher of the Eeformation was a 
Saxon monk, is one of those coincidences which so often 
mark the course of Divine retribution. The conquest of 
Saxony, commenced by Charlemagne, under the sanction 
of pope Adrian i. (a.d. 785), filled up the career which 
constituted his title to the imperial crown. It was 
Saxony, that rising under Otho of Nordheim to avenge 
its wrongs against Henry iv., blindly aided Hildebrand 
to reverse the original relations of the Empire and the 
See. Finally, it was Saxony that, taking the lead in the 
Eeformation, first defied the papacy, and dared to re- 
nounce its authority at once in spiritual and temporal 
questions. 

The monks, again, had been the preachers, spies, 
inquisitors, favourites, and ever-willing tools of the 
papacy. It was from a cloister that the Bible was now 
put into the hands of its opponents, and a monk was the 
first to hurl the thunderbolts of inspiration at Eome. 
Luther, like other monks, was a devoted child of the 
Church ; but he was also a warm-hearted, earnest, pious 
Christian. His great intellect never blinded his sim- 
plicity, and his marvellous sagacity in the conduct of 
affairs left him to the last a straightforward man of his 
word. He had many faults, and belonged to a faulty age. 
He was impetuous, self-confident, intolerant ; but he 
was also guileless, humble, believing, and fearless in the 
cause of truth. The Bible was his rule of faith, and his 
heart glowed with love to God and man. These were 



INDULGENCES. 



333 



the secrets of his success ; in these his errors were swal- 
lowed up, and forgotten of good men. 

Luther began his career with the protest, now so 
familiar, against indulgences. Wiclif and Huss had 
spoken to the same effect : it was comparatively a 
recent abuse, and that which admitted of the least 
defence. An indulgence was properly the relaxation 
of some prescribed act of penance. A transgressor, 
who had been appointed a certain term of exclusion 
from the sacred mysteries, might, on proper evidence 
of repentance, be indulged with a remission of part of 
the time ; or an easier penalty might be substituted 
for one that was too severe or impracticable. A pil- 
grimage might be commuted for some other act of de- 
votion ; a fast too rigorous for health might be reduced 
to a practicable degree of abstinence. It was thought 
reasonable also to exempt those in high station, or public 
office, from penances which might impair the respect due 
to their persons, or impede the discharge of their duties. 
In such cases bishops were wont to relax the penalties 
of the canons, taking care to require proof of penitence 
in some other way. For all these outward acts of pen- 
ance were designed to produce, or to evidence, that in- 
ward contrition of the heart to which alone forgiveness 
is granted by God. The first indiscriminate indulgence 
was proclaimed by Urban n. (1100), to enlist soldiers 
for the delivery of the Holy Land, and the example was 
followed in the subsequent erusades. The value and 
extent of those remissions were not very closely scru- 
tinised ; the theoretical view is that the crusaders were 
dispensed from any act or term of penance, which might 
happen to be enjoined to them, in consideration of their 
devoting their persons and substance to the liberation of 
Christ's sepulchre from infidels. There is no doubt, 
however, that acts of penance were now generally re- 



334 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



garded, not simply as evidences of repentance, but as 
meritorious works atoning for sin, and cancelling the 
penalty with God. It followed that a crusade, which 
was of such worth as to compensate for all and every act 
of penance, must avail with God for the forgiveness of 
every kind of sin. It was a meritorious work, to be 
reckoned in the other world against the crimes and de- 
baucheries which denied the crusader in this. This was 
the practical view, whatever might be the doctrine of 
divines, and it was this view which made indulgences 
popular. Innocent in. extended the expedient to the 
crusade against the Albigenses : the cause of Christ was 
better served by exterminating his enemies in Christen- 
dom than in foreign parts. After this, Boniface granted 
an indulgence to all who should visit the shrines of the 
apostles at the jubilee ; and, finally, it became an ordi- 
nary instrument for raising money, the condition being 
simply a contribution to some holy work which the pope 
desired to promote. 

In the year 1517 Leo, being in want of funds to 
carry on the building of St. Peter's, issued a plenary 
indulgence to all who should contribute. The indul- 
gences were committed, that is to say farmed out, to 
bishops and other speculators, who paid the pope a sum 
beforehand, and then sent their agents round to sell the 
privilege to the public. In Saxony, the pope's sister 
Magdalene, having obtained the contract, employed a 
gentleman of Milan, named Arembaud (afterwards an 
archbishop), as her agent. Under him, a Dominican 
friar, named John Tetzel, was employed to retail the 
spiritual wares. Tetzel set up a great red cross in the 
churches, and summoned the faithful by beat of drum to 
his money-table. If they had committed the grossest sin 
that could be imagined — and his language was as foul as 
his life — an indulgence would blot it out in a moment. 



> 



THE HOLE IN THE DRUM. 



335 



He had saved more souls by these little charms than St. 
Peter by his preaching or his keys. Their virtue ex- 
tended to the dead, as well as the living : they had only 
to contribute in the name of a deceased friend, and the 
moment the money clinked in his coffer, the effect was 
felt in the deepest caverns of purgatory, and the soul 
flew up to heaven. 1 

That Tetzel grossly exaggerated the doctrine of the 
Church, was doubtless the first conviction of the young 
Augustinian, who listened in shame and anger to this 
impudent declamation. Luther vowed to make a hole 
in the friar's drum; but when he entered on the 
controversy the hole extended much farther than he 
expected. The impudent hawker had church-warrant 
for every one of his puffs. The merit. of religious per- 
formances, and consequently of indulgences, had long 
been declared applicable to souls in purgatory. Be- 
ginning with simple prayers for the departed in Christ, 
the Church of Eome had gone on to " saying mass" for 
them ; the mass had become a sacrifice extended, by the 
communion of the saints, beyond the grave ; it procured 
remission of sins to quick and dead. Ey parity of 
reasoning, whatever remitted sins was as efficacious for 
one as the other ; and as it was easy to purchase two or 
more " plenary " indulgences, it was obvious that the 
superfluity might be made over to some poor soul in 
purgatory, who had no money to buy for himself. This 
charitable substitution was expressly authorised in the 
terms of Leo's bull ; but why (demanded Luther), since 
the pope is so powerful, does he not deliver all the souls 
in purgatory at once, out of his own charity, instead of 
making their friends bring them out by driblets ? This 
question was never answered. 

1 Tetzel was convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by the 
emperor, but spared on the intercession of the elector of Saxony. 



336 THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 

At Borne the difficulty was to define the ground- 
work of the indulgence itself. All who held to the 
primitive use denied it any effect beyond the relaxation 
of church discipline. Others, objecting that such relaxa- 
tions would be injurious instead of beneficial to the soul, 
if the sin remained imforgiven, maintained the absolution 
must confer real remission of sins. Still (as some added) 
it was conditional on true repentance, and moreover to 
be followed by voluntary satisfaction, by way of com- 
pensation to the Divine justice. This, however, plainly 
took away all the value of the indulgence, since true 
repentance would be equally efficacious without it. 
Hence the doctrine of the communion of the saints was 
pressed into the question, to give the destitute a share 
in the merits of the more advanced. The Church was 
held to be a general treasury of all good works, of 
which the dispensing was committed to the pope, and, 
for fear the balance should not be equal to his drafts, the 
merits of Christ were thrown in as infinite. This last, 
however, was dangerous ground, and the casuist had 
to walk warily. It was asked how mfinite merit 
could admit of addition ? why it was not equal to 
the deliverance of all the souls in purgatory at one 
moment, instead of needing to be eked out by papal 
bulls and pecuniary collections ? These, again, were 
questions which Eome has never answered. While 
repeating a creed which places the great privilege of 
Christianity in remission of sins, the Church of Eome 
has no definite answer to the sinner's demand, " What 
shall I do to be saved ?" 

Leo was a magnificent, refined, and luxurious prince, 
fond of art and literature, but ignorant of theology, and 
without a vestige of piety. 1 Luther's expostulations 

1 He would have been a perfect pontiff, writes Fra Paolo, if to his other 



BURNING THE POPE'S BULL. 



337 



afforded food for merriment to the parasites and jesters 
with whom the pope spent his private hours. He handed 
the honest friar, and his ninety-five propositions, over 
to his legate, with instructions to silence him either by 
threats or bribes. When both failed, he decided (like 
Pliny in the case of the primitive Christians) that autho- 
rity must at all events be upheld. In a brief dated 
9th November 1518, the pope declared himself in- 
vested with the power of remitting all sins by the 
sacrament of penance, and all punishments by means 
of indulgences. This doctrine he ordered to be univer- 
sally taught and received on pain of excommunication. 
Luther appealed to a General Council ; this was the 
standing form of defying the papacy. The pope was 
not slow at his weapon. In a bull dated 15th June 
1520, Leo condemned ninety-one propositions as heresy, 
and ordered Luther to retract them within sixty days, on 
pain of being dealt with as a heretic. This, too, was in 
due form ; the next step was to prepare the fagot and fire. 

Here, however, the Saxon monk determined to be 
beforehand with his opponents. Eemembering, perhaps, 
how pope Paschal excommunicated his bull, instead of 
himself, Luther adopted a similar vicarious revenge, and 
on the 10th December 1520 startled the disciples of 
Eome by publicly committing Leo's bull, with the whole 
volume of Decretals, to the flames at Wittenberg. This 
daring act was a violation of all rule. It amounted to a 
repudiation of the pope, and secession from Eome, the 
boasted centre of Christian unity. It was the inaugura- 
tion of the Protestant Eeformation. 

qualities lie had united some knowledge of religion, and a little more incli- 
nation to piety, but lie had no great love of either." — History of the Council 
of Trent, i. 4. Leo's panegyrists do not care to contradict this statement. 
Though an archbishop before he was a man, his licentiousness was 
atrocious. That he patronised Raphael and the fine arts is but a poor 
set-off in a Christian bishop. 

Z 

I 



338 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



The pope, roused at last to active indignation, re- 
sorted as usual to the secular arm. The emperor 
Charles v. was the most powerful monarch of the age, 
and a bigoted papist. The elector of Saxony, however, 
refused to surrender his subject to the tender mercies 
of the apostolical see, and Charles was obliged to 
grant him a fair hearing before the imperial Diet at 
Worms. 1 Luther presented himself at the appointed 
time, undismayed by the fate of Huss. The precedent 
of Constance was repeated. The monk owned his books, 
disclaimed misinterpretations, but refused to retract unless 
convinced by Scripture and sound reason. The papists 
insisted on submission to the Church : they even pressed 
the emperor to violate his safe conduct, but Charles was 
not a Sigismund ; he returned the memorable reply, that 
Honour should retain its sway in the breasts of kings, 
though it were banished from all the world beside. 
Luther departed in safety, but the elector, knowing what 
was at hand, caused him to be seized by a masked party, 
who bore him to the castle of Wartenburg, where he lay 
concealed from his persecutors. 

The precaution was not unnecessary. Hitherto the 
state of politics had befriended the monk. The pope 
had deeply offended the emperor, first by opposing his 
election to the empire, and then by deserting to the 
French, when their arms were prevailing in Italy. 
Leo had now reverted to the imperialists, and the 
emperor was ready to put down his opponents. An 

1 Charles succeeded his grandfather Maximilian in the empire A.D. 
1519. He was archduke of Austria and the Netherlands, and wore the 
crown of the Two Sicilies, besides that of " Spain and the Indies," ruling 
at the same time in Vienna, Brussels, Valladolid, Saragoza, and Naples. 
The electors of Germany, however, knew their rights, and Frederick of 
Saxony, who had refused the imperial crown in order to consolidate the 
power of Christendom under Charles, against the Turks then threatening its 
eastern boundary, was not the man to quail before a despot. 



POPE ADRIAN VI. 



339 



edict came out which inhibited the new opinions as 
dangerous heresy, and placed Luther and his adherents 
under the ban of the empire (1521). Leo was baulked 
of the triumph by his sudden death, and his place, to the 
great disappointment of the cardinal Wolsey, was filled by 
the emperor's tutor, Adrian, once a poor charity-boy at 
Utrecht, whom the late emperor Maximilian had promoted 
to the bishopric of Tortosa. 

The election of a stranger who had never seen 
Eome, and was wholly unknown to the rest of the 
Sacred College, was attributed to inspiration : but 
the personal friendship of an emperor is an inspi- 
ration of no uncommon character. Adrian vi. was 
certainly not a pope to the taste of the Eoman court. 
Beginning by retaining his baptismal appellation, he 
expelled the whole tribe of poets and wits from the 
apostolical palace, and reduced the luxurious table of 
Leo to ecclesiastical simplicity. To his poor relations, 
who came flocking out of Flanders to share the spoils 
after the accustomed rule, he presented a suit of clothes 
with money to pay their passage home again ; exhorting 
them to be content with the lot that God had awarded 
them. He created but one cardinal, and canonised only 
one saint ; the latter Luther denounced as " the new idol 
and the new devil set up at Misnia." His epitaph, 
composed by himself, declared that " he found nothing 
in life more unhappy than to govern." Another, which 
might be thought the epitaph of the Church, proclaimed 
that " piety was buried in the same grave." The Eoman 
courtiers pronounced him an excellent clergyman, but a 
very poor pope. 1 

Nevertheless, Adrian was as anxious as any of 
the cardinals to check the progress of Luther. That 

1 Giovio in Vita Had. VI. 

z 2 



340 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



reformation was needed, he frankly admitted ; bnt law 
must first be enforced against heretics. Lnther was 
as bad as Mohammed ; he was a cancer to be cut out 
and cauterised ; he was Dathan and Abiram, and since 
the earth would not open her mouth and swallow him 
up, the German princes were exhorted to deal with him 
as their famous ancestors had dealt with Huss and 
Jerome. The elector of Saxony received a letter filled 
with objurgations. Charlemagne and pope Adrian had 
reclaimed the Saxons from idolatry, and Charles and 
pope Adrian would save them from heresy, in spite of 
his infatuated and diabolical blindness. If the elector 
did not repent, everlasting burnings awaited him here- 
after, and even in this world he should feel the edge of 
either sword, the apostolical and the imperial. 

The pope had studied neither Luther nor the Bible, 
and did not know that others were wiser than himself. 
The Diet of Nuremberg rejected his appeal without a 
dissentient voice. They sent him a " hundred griev- 
ances," resolving that no one should be hindered in 
preaching the word of God, till the Council which 
Adrian promised should assemble. The cardinals were 
less gratified at the pope's abuse of Luther than incensed 
at his admission that any reformation was required. 
They told him he was ruining the Church, that heresy 
must be nipped in the bud, and rebellion be encoun- 
tered by submission first, and reform afterwards. If 
they had prevailed, they would have said that, as there 
was no longer any discontent, there was no occasion for 
reform. 

Meantime, Zwingle was conducting in Switzerland a 
similar work to Luther's in Saxony. He had preached 
evangelical doctrines as early, perhaps earlier, than the 
Augustine friar ; and the Alpine peasantry, who used to 
think it glory to fight the pope's battles, began to stay 



POPE CLEMENT VII. 341 

at home. The senate of Zurich declared itself on the 
side of the Bible. The pope wrote a nattering letter 
in January 1523, offering him good preferment, but 
Zwingle proceeded the same year, in company of two 
other commissioners, with authority from the senate, to 
destroy the images. " Of all the wooden gods (he re- 
ported) not one had the virtue of resisting the flames. A 
miraculous stone virgin which, according to the Church, 
had returned to Altenbach after several removals, and 
was by no force to be kept away from its convent, was 
induced, by our persuasions, to move, and stranger still, 
it has never returned ! " The next year they dissolved 
the monasteries. Then Zwingle, who was a priest though 
not a monk, took a wife. In April 1525, the mass was 
abolished, and the communion administered in both kinds. 
The same year witnessed the publication of a large por- 
tion of Luther's version of the Bible in the Swiss dialect. 
Before that, Adrian was in his grave, having consumed 
his brief pontificate 1 in endeavours, equally fruitless, to 
appease the differences in the Church, and to unite the 
Christian princes in defence of Europe against the Turks, 
now masters of Belgrade and Ehodes. 

Clement vn. was another of the De' Medici. 2 Pre- 
cluded from the priesthood by the canonical impediment 
of illegitimate birth, he entered the military order of 
St. John, and carried its standard at the coronation of 
his cousin Leo. The same day, while yet in his armour, 
the pope made him archbishop of Florence, and soon 
after cardinal and chancellor of the Roman church, hav- 
ing legitimised his birth by pontifical decree. In this 
office he transacted most of the public business ; and by 

1 Elected 9th January 1522, crowned 30th August, died 11th Sept. 
1523. 

2 He was a posthumous and illegitimate son of the Julian who was 
murdered in the conspiracy of Sixttts tv. 



342 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



now making it over to cardinal Colonna, with a magni- 
ficent palace, lie purchased his support in the pontifical 
election. Clement began by disowning the imperial 
alliance against the French king — declaring that it be- 
hoved the common father of Christendom to be neutral 
in its unhappy dissensions. His real design was to 
prevent either monarch from becoming too powerful. 
When the French king had repossessed himself of Milan, 
Clement opened negotiations, which were unexpectedly 
interrupted by the defeat and capture of Francis in the 
battle of Pavia, 25th February 1525. 1 

This imperial victory alarmed all Italy. The pope at 
once formed a confederation with the States of Yenice, 
Florence, and Milan, for their common protection. Of 
this holy league Henry viii. of England accepted the 
protection. When Francis obtained his liberation, the 
pope absolved him from the hard conditions to which he 
had sworn, and received him into the alliance. To Cle- 
ment the emperor was a greater object of terror than 
the Eeformers. The imperialist party at Eome, however, 
headed by the Colonnas, were incensed at his perfidy. 
They attacked the Yatican, and Clement fled into the 
castle. A capitulation followed, which the pope set 
aside as soon as he was at liberty, and carried fire and 
sword into the territories of his opponents. He was in- 
terrupted by a more formidable master of this bloody 
game : the duke of Bourbon suddenly appeared before 
Eome with the imperial army, demanding free passage 
to Naples. Being refused, he attacked the suburbs next 
day, but fell by a shot from an arquebus. The im- 
perialists, under the command of the prince of Orange, 

1 The French lost 80,000 men in this famous combat. The king of 
Navarre was also taken prisoner. Francis wrote to his mother, "Madam, 
all is lost but honour." The imperial army was commanded by the duke 
of Bourbon. 



IMPERIAL SACK OF ROME. 



343 



assaulted the walls with the utmost fury, and the same 
evening they became masters of the city (6th May 
1527). ]^o heathen or barbarian sack of Eome was 
ever attended by greater atrocities than were -now per- 
petrated by the troops of his Apostolic and Catholic 
Majesty. The Spaniards behaved worse than the Ger- 
mans. 1 Plunder and violence raged without restraint, 
while the pope lay a helpless prisoner in his fortress. 

The emperor receiving the intelligence at Madrid 
affected the deepest concern. He stopped the rejoicings 
for his son's birth, put on mourning, and ordered public 
prayers for the Holy Father's liberation. Nevertheless, 
Charles took care to keep him a close prisoner, till he 
had exacted a large sum of money, with several Eoman 
cities, and hostages for his future behaviour. These 
dissensions between the chief of the Church and the 
chief of the State enabled the Eeformers not only to 
resist the execution of the edict of Worms, but to ex- 
tend their religious securities. 

They were equally befriended by the disturbances in 
the east. The Turks, whose advances had been neg- 
lected, crossed the Christian frontier and seized on a large 
portion of Hungary. King Louis n., the last of the 
Jaghellons, with the flower of his nobility, fell in the 
fatal battle of Mohatz, 29th August 1526. Buda, the 
key of Christendom, passed to the Moslems, and the 
vaivode of Transylvania accepted a tributary crown at 
their hands. The diet of Presburg conferred the elective 
crowns of Bohemia and Hungary on the archduke 
Ferdinand, the emperor's brother and vicar, but to stay 
the progress of Solyman it was indispensable to unite 
the resources of Germany, and for that purpose to come 



1 The Germans being mostly Protestants, destroyed the works of art 
which they detested as idolatrous. The Spaniards were mere butchers and 
ruffians. 



344 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



to an understanding -with the reforming princes and 
cities. The Turk himself was thus made to minister in 
the propagation of evangelical trnth. From the univer- 
sity of Wittenberg, whither Luther had returned, his 
emissaries penetrated all Germany,, His doctrines 
gained the ear of the people : they were openly embraced 
by some of the principal cities, and four or five consider- 
able princes. In many places the monks and nuns 
renounced their vows, the forsaken monasteries were 
suppressed by the local authorities, the mass was 
abolished, and the communion in both kinds restored. 
Luther compiled a liturgy in the vernacular language, 
which was observed throughout Saxony by the elector's 
authority ; it was no longer a party but a National 
Church that confronted and defied the Eoman See. 

In vain its adherents in-ged the execution of the 
edict of Worms. The diet at Spires (18th April 1524) 
could only (after a severe struggle) carry a mixed 
decree which satisfied neither side. A papal league, 
signed at Eatisbon, was met by the antagonistic league 
of Smalcald two years after. The elector of Saxony 
dying 5th May 1525, was succeeded by a yet more 
evangelical reformer in his brother J ohn. A month after 
Luther astonished and scandalised the world by the 
marriage of a monk with a nun. 1 The respect still 
attached to vows of celibacy made his friends tremble, 
while the papists expected a universal reprobation 
both of the man and his doctrine. Yet no perceptible 
check was experienced to the cause, and in now com- 
menting on an act of which the two parties were the 
only proper judges, it should be remembered that both 
had long before publicly repudiated their unscriptural 

1 Erasmus alludes to a vulgar legend that anti-Christ was to be the 
child of a monk and a nun : but of such anti-Christs (he observes) there 
were some thousands in the world before Luther married. 



WAR OF THE PEASANTS. 



345 



vows, as well as the false authority which imposed 
them, and that twenty years of domestic happiness 
crowned their union. 

A far more serious matter was the war of the 
peasants, which, like the English riots in the time of 
Wiclif, were charged on the evangelical movement. 
There was so much truth in the charge, as that every 
righteous reform encourages the hope of others, and 
every work of darkness has reason to tremble at any 
beam that penetrates the gloom. The abuses fostered 
in the State, under the perverted views encouraged by 
the Eoman Church, were second only to those in the 
Church. The people were everywhere shamefully op- 
pressed, in most parts reduced to actual servitude. 
The circulation of the Bible with its reiterated appeals 
to conscience, and the courageous example of the evan- 
gelical preachers, encouraged the exercise of private 
judgment, in temporals no less than spirituals. The 
discontent was exasperated by religious persecution, 
and with the terrible proofs of sacerdotal immorality 
now flooding the public mind, it is not surprising that 
a peasantry, systematically kept in ignorance, should 
rise against their tyrants in Church and State together. 
Similar rebellions had occurred before Luther, but 
Luther was so far from sympathising with rebellion 
that he called for measures of repression absolutely 
inhuman. 

The rebellion was headed by Munzer, a dangerous 
fanatic, who hurled his denunciations at Luther as 
fiercely as at the pope. He called on the people to exter- 
minate their rulers, as the Israelites treated the people 
of Canaan ; and numbers of his followers fell without 
resistance, as they stood singing hymns, in expectation 
of the celestial succours he had promised them. 

During these disturbances Frederick of Saxony died, 



346 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



and was succeeded by his brother J ohn, a still more de- 
cided reformer than himself. He was joined by Philip, 
landgrave of Hesse, and the princes of Prussia, Bran- 
denburg, Lauenburg, and some others, with the elector 
palatine. A resolution was agreed upon at Salfield 
(a.d. 1528), to use their utmost exertions for the glory 
of God, and the doctrine conformable to his word, of 
justification through faith. On the other hand, Charles 
summoned a diet to enforce the edict of Worms, and 
fulfil his engagements with the pope ; but the attitude 
of the princes, and the advance of the Turks, com- 
pelled him to be cautious. 

The discovery of a conspiracy for the secret destruc- 
tion of the reformers drove them into still closer alliance. 
A book of doctrines and ceremonies, drawn up by Luther, 
was published by the elector's authority, in Saxony. 
At last, the states of the empire assembling at Spires 
(a.d. 1529), the reformers, after much discussion, pre- 
sented the memorable protest, which gave a name to the 
evangelical movement throughout Europe. 1 This cele- 
brated document bore the signatures of six princes and 
the deputies of fourteen imperial cities. It charged all 
the disorders of the empire on the notorious abuses in 
the Church, declared the pontifical mass to be tainted 
with impiety, and asserted the great doctrine that scrip- 
ture was the true interpreter of scripture. The sub- 
scribers appealed from the diet to the emperor, or a free 
council, and having delivered in their manifesto, de- 
parted to their respective states and cities. 

The Protest gave the utmost umbrage to the emperor, 

1 The word Protestant is not found in any formulary of the Church of 
England, but it is freely adopted in the statute law, and by all historians 
and divines. It was unhesitatingly accepted by Bishops Andrewes, Cosin, 
and Laud, and is the official designation of the Episcopal Churches in 
Scotland and the United States. 



CORONATION OF CHARLES V. 



347 



who conceived his own authority, no less than the 
pope's, to be concerned in subdning this audacious 
minority. He hastened to conclude his differences with 
the pope, and cemented the alliance by the marriage of 
his natural daughter, Margaret of Austria, with Clement's 
kinsman, Alexander de' Medici. The treaty stipu- 
lated for the reduction of the pope's native republic, 
the transfer of Florence to Alexander, the restoration of 
Naples to the emperor, and of some other places to the 
pope. Finally, both were to put forth all their powers 
for the suppression of heresy. 

This treaty concluded, Charles proceeded into Italy 
to receive the imperial crown. To be nearer Germany, he 
induced the pope to meet him at Bologna, where the 
ceremony was performed in great state, 24th Feb. 1530. 
It seems that a singular regulation required the em- 
peror to be in holy orders : accordingly, before the 
coronation, Charles was ordained deacon, and arrayed in 
the surplice and amice of a canon of St. Peter and St. 
John Lateran. In this capacity he served the mass, 
which was celebrated by the pope. Having resumed the 
imperial mantle, brought from Constantinople, the em- 
peror knelt before the pope, who presented him with a 
naked sword, charging him to use it for the defence of 
the Church against her enemies. 1 When the crown had 
been placed on his head, the emperor kissed the white 
cross embroidered on Clement's scarlet slipper, and ex- 
claimed, " I swear ever to employ my utmost power in 
defence of the pontifical dignity and the Church of 
Borne." The two sovereigns were then seated on the 
same dais, the papal chair being six inches higher than 
the imperial. 2 

Proceeding into Germany, the emperor held a diet 

1 Compare Matt. xxvi. 52, xxviii. 19. 
8 D'Aubigne Hist, de la Reformation, xiv. 2. 



348 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



at Augsburg (a.d. 1530), which was preceded by a 
mass, at which the elector of Saxony, as grand marshal 
of the empire, was bound to attend his sovereign. 
John complied, by the advice of his divines, after much 
hesitation ; but he disappointed the papists by remaining 
on his feet, with the sword borne aloft, while the em- 
peror prostrated himself at the elevation of the Host. 
It was mainly on this pious and sagacious prince that 
the weight of the contest now rested. He had left 
Luther at Coburg on account of the unbridled fierceness 
of his tongue ; and Melancthon, who accompanied him, 
was perpetually weakening the cause by an over-eager- 
ness to conciliate opponents. Between these extremes 
the elector pursued a firm, consistent course, sustained 
by daily reading the Psalms, with fervent prayer, in his 
chamber. He was warmly seconded by the younger 
princes. " Bather would I renounce my subjects and my 
estates," exclaimed the prince of Anhalt, " and leave 
my fatherland with only a staff in my hand — rather 
would I gain my bread as a shoeblack, than receive any 
other doctrine than this confession." The margrave of 
Brandenburg told the emperor that, before he would allow 
the Word of God to be taken from him, he would kneel 
at his feet and let him strike off his head. Charles, who 
spoke no German, was moved at the vivacity of his looks 
and gesture. He heard the same language from all : 
they would do nothing in religion against their con- 
science. The impetuous young landgrave of Hesse sent 
the emperor as a present a richly-bound Summary of 
Faith, which threw his Spanish prelates into an ecstasy 
of fury. Nor should we omit the language of the honest 
burgher Franentrant, who, in laying the protest before 
Charles, said that every one must give account to the 
Supreme Judge, not to creatures changing with the wind. 
" Better fall into the worst cruelties of man," he added. 



CONFESSION OF AUG8BTTRO. 



349 



" than risk the vengeance of God. Our people will 
not obey decrees which are not founded on the Holy 
Scriptures. Princes have no right to constrain their 
subjects to sin." 

Charles, though the most accomplished and gracious 
prince of the age, was a despot and a bigot. Liberty, 
civil or religious, was hateful to the king of the 
kings of Europe. " His imperial majesty (said king 
Ferdinand, his mouthpiece) must be obeyed." The 
Protestants determined to obey God. With great diffi- 
culty they procured a confession of their faith, drawn 
up by Melancthon, and approved by Luther, to be 
solemnly read in the diet. It was the first formal 
expression of the Protestant creed, and, as the elector 
insisted, on its being read in German, it produced a 
powerful impression on all who heard it. The Keforma- 
tion had been so grossly maligned by the papists, that 
many were surprised to hear the 66 heretics " confess 
their belief in God, in Christ, the sacraments, and a 
future life. 

The confession consisted of twenty-eight articles, 
of which the first twenty- one were devoted to the 
profession of faith. After laying down the articles of 
the trinity, incarnation, original sin, and atonement, 
it proceeded to assert justification by faith only, and the 
relation of grace and works ; then followed the doctrine of 
the one Church, in the communion of all saints, and 
of the word and sacraments. The Lord's Supper was 
defined according to Luther's teaching, to the exclusion 
of Zwingle's : for after the conference of Marburg, where 
these two reformers failed to agree, the doctor of "Wit- 
tenburg vehemently rejected all comprehension of the 
sacramentarians. 1 The eighteenth article asserted the 

1 The word consubstantiation does not occur in this confession, nor 
is it ever admitted by Lutheran divines. The article simply says that 



350 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



necessity of the Holy Spirit to work the righteousness 
of God, and the twenty-first, the mediation of Christ 
only as our true priest and intercessor with God. Seven 
articles were devoted to abuses requiring immediate 
reform. They were : The retrenchment of the cup, com- 
pulsory celibacy, the expiatory sacrifice of the mass, the 
enumeration of sins in confession, meat fasts, monastic 
vows, and the temporal power of the bishops. It was 
added that indulgences, pilgrimages, excommunications, 
and many other abuses, might be specified, but there was 
no desire to extend the catalogue. 

The confession of Augsburg, singularly enough, is 
silent on the subject of the papacy. To Luther, as to 
Wiclif, the pope was anti-Christ. Melancthon, how- 
ever, was willing to admit his primacy, as a human 
ordinance, provided he would be ruled by the Gospel. 
His morbid anxiety for peace kept him from touching a 
point which was certain to prove unmanageable could 
all else be arranged. ' Luther probably foresaw the rejec- 
tion of all their articles at Eome, and was therefore the 
easier reconciled to the omission. 

The confession was presented by the same princes, 
and by part of the cities, who had before subscribed the 
protest ; but Philip of Hesse excepted to the article on 
the Lord's Supper as too exclusive, desiring to com- 

" in the Lord's Supper the body and blood of the Lord are truly pre- 
sent, and distributed to those who eat." The German copies add, 
"under the species of bread and wine." Zwingle conceived that the 
bread and wine were simply efficacious signs, which excited a lively 
faith to appropriating Christ's presence in the heart. Wide as they 
thought this diversity, both were really on one side of a great con- 
troversy, and the Church of Rome on the other. The papists always 
insisted on the absence, of the substance of bread and wine. This was their 
test. Luther and Zwingle, on the other hand, both attributed the value 
of the sacrament to Christ Himself received through faith. They differed 
on the modus operandi ; but both appealed to Scripture as the sole rule of 
truth, and so gave their hearers the liberty whichthey took to themselves. 



TRUCE OF RATISBON. 



351 



prehend the sacramentaries. No sooner was it read, 
than Herman, electoral archbishop of Cologne, gave it 
his adhesion, and resolved to introduce it into his elec- 
torate. Frederick, the Count Palatine, and some other 
princes, followed his example. The bishop of Augsburg 
acknowledged its orthodoxy : " This is all true, and we 
cannot deny it." "I have no objection to his proposals," 
said the archbishop of Salzburg, " but I cannot submit 
to be reformed by a paltry monk." Charles himself, 
with the stanchest adherents of the papacy, were for 
granting the double communion and the marriage of the 
clergy ; but the orders from Eome, incessantly repeated 
by the legate, insisted on " no reform." A violent 
refutation of the confession was delivered in by Faber 
and Eck. The emperor refused to receive the pro 
testant rejoinder, and, after numerous conferences, the 
diet broke up with an edict to restore the papal obedience 
throughout Germany, placing all dissentients under the 
ban of the empire. 

The Eoman Catholic princes signed a league for the 
execution of this decree ; the Protestants responded by 
a league of mutual defence. War was imminent, when 
a movement of the Turks against Austria compelling 
the emperor to ask for subsidies, the Protestants refused 
to furnish them while in peril themselves. Charles was 
again obliged to temporise : finally it was agreed to 
refer all further proceedings with respect to religion to 
the decision of a free council. This concession, signed 
at Eatisbon, 2nd August 1532, was the first legal 
recognition of the principle of toleration. It alarmed 
the pope beyond measure. A general council might 
question his legitimacy : there was nothing it might 
not question. He demanded conditions which he knew 
to be impossible. He entered into a secret negotiation 
with Francis i. of France : but Francis, though hating 



352 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



protestantism as much as the pope, was encouraging the 
protestants, in order to harass his rival Charles. These 
complications postponed the council ; but they postponed 
also the war against protestantism, and the Eeformation 
continued its career without check. 

If Zwingle had gone beyond Luther, Calvin was 
more anti-papal than Zwingle. His teaching rooted 
itself in Switzerland, and made a great impression 
throughout the west of Europe. In England, too, the 
name was spreading fast. As early as 1525, Wolsey 
warned the Court of Eome that every county would 
soon become Lutheran. The king, indeed, was a greater 
papist than the pope : he was personally attached to 
Clement, and sent him supplies while besieged in his 
castle ; but Henry was furious on the divorce ques- 
tion. Clement would have granted his wish without 
hesitation, but feared the emperor, who was Katharine's 
nephew, and would not allow her child to be deprived 
of the succession. A general council would be sure 
to set aside the dispensation of Julius n., as contrary 
to the Levitical degrees and the canons of the Church, 
and so cancel the marriage. But, in every point of 
view, a council was formidable to Eome ; hence the 
pope temporised and delayed till Henry's patience was 
exhausted, and England was irretrievably lost. 

A good accord between the crown and the pope, at 
this moment, might have crushed the opening germs of 
inquiry in this country, as easily as in Italy, Spain, 
and Austria ; but a gracious Providence kept its 
opponents apart till their reconciliation was too late. 
Henry was advised to rest his cause on the in- 
competency of the pope to dispense with the prohi- 
bitions of God's word written. This was, in effect, 
the main question between Eome and the Protestants. 
The universities and learned bodies of Europe declared 



ENGLAND, SWITZEELAND, AND SCANDINAVIA. 353 

against the dispensation. The king then demanded 
sentence, not of divorce but of nullity of marriage, in 
the ecclesiastical court of his own realm. The arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, as metropolitan, was bonnd to 
pronounce it, and then, to prevent a reversal at Eome, 
parliament, like the African Chnrch of the fourth cen- 
tury, prohibited appeals beyond sea. 

This proceeding was a renunciation of papal usur- 
pations, but not necessarily a separation from the Church 
of Eome, The nation was still ignorant and bigoted ; 
the king, furious against Luther, and confident in his 
own theology, was inflated by the most extravagant 
conceptions of royal authority. He supposed himself 
quite able to act the pope in his own dominions. In 
this presumption he authorised the circulation of the 
Bible, and when it began to bear fruit, burned pro- 
testant and papist at the same stake. By this time, 
however, the cause was out of the hand of either 
king or pope. " The Word of God increased, and the 
number of the disciples multiplied, and a great com- 
pany of the priests were obedient to the faith." 1 Mary, 
whose legitimacy was bound up in the cause of the 
papacy, could indeed bribe a packed parliament to a 
reconciliation with Eome by a promise (never meant 
to be kept) of retaining the church lands. The truth, 
however, had taken root too deeply to be consumed in 
the flames of Smithfield ; they only added to the na- 
tional conversion that peculiar horror and distrust, with 
which the papacy has ever since been justly regarded in 
this country. 

Meantime the Eeformation advanced, with equal 
or greater rapidity, in Switzerland and Scandinavia. 
The mass was abolished at Geneva in 1535, and at 



1 Acts vi. 7. 



354 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION . 



Lausanne the year after. The bishops fled, and the 
papacy lost its most valued recruiting ground for ever. 
Denmark and Norway went next. Christian in. pro- 
claimed the protestant religion at Copenhagen (1537), 
replacing the bishops by " superintendents," ordained by 
Luther's friend and disciple, J ohn Bugenhagen. Iceland, 
Sweden, and the eastern coast of the Baltic followed in 
a few years. 

The countries politically attached to the papacy 
could not resist the general infection. In France, the 
spread of evangelical views among the educated classes 
was such as to arouse the alarm of the king, who, in 
spite of his alliance with the German reformers, was 
a bitter persecutor. In 1535, Francis walked in pro- 
cession through the streets of Paris, bareheaded with a 
torch in his hand, and further to purify his capital, com- 
mitted six Lutherans to the flames. Many fugitives 
took refuge in Switzerland, thereby materially aiding 
the cause of truth in that country. Charles's hereditary 
dominions, Spain, Austria, and the Netherlands, har- 
boured disciples : all the power of the papacy could not 
exclude them from Italy ' itself. The literary societies, 
formerly tainted with the infidelity in fashion at the 
court of Leo, felt the new power of the Bible. 

Not a few of the leading men at Eome had long 
seen, with Adrian vi., that extensive reforms were needed 
in the church. Contarini, Sadolet, Griberto, Caraffa — 
who all became cardinals, and the last pope — with many 
others, established a meeting for spiritual exercises in the 
Oratory of Love. Contarini wrote a treatise on justifica- 
tion, entirely agreeing with the doctrine of Luther ; yet 
Pole, who had fled from England to avoid the royal 
reformation, spoke of this book in the highest praise. 
" You have brought to light (he wrote) a jewel which 
the church kept half concealed." One of the number de- 



PROGRESS IN ITALY. 



355 



scribes the gospel as " no other than the blessed tidings 
that the only begotten Son of God, clad in our flesh, 
hath made satisfaction for us to the justice of the eternal 
Father. He who believes this enters into the kingdom 
of God, he enjoys the universal pardon ; from a carnal 
he becomes a spiritual creature, from a child of wrath a 
child of grace ; he lies in a sweet peace of conscience." 
This was the doctrine stigmatised as Lutheranism at 
Rome, though it was unquestionably the teaching of Au- 
gustine, Ambrose, and Bernard. "It is necessary (says 
the latter) to believe that thou canst have remission of 
sins only by the mercy of God; next, that thou canst 
have no good work in thee unless He gives it thee ; 
lastly, that thou canst never attain to eternal life by any 
works, but only by His free gift of it. Yet neither is 
this enough, but only the beginning and foundation of 

the faith Believe also this : that thine own sins 

are forgiven by Him, for He himself forgives thy sins, 
and confers thy merits, and nevertheless grants them a 
reward." 1 

These opinions extended themselves, in spite of the 
Sacred College, through the literary circles of Italy. 
The sack of Borne, with the subjugation of Florence and 
Milan, drove their adherents to Venice, Padua, Modena, 
and even Naples. At the last they had a zealous 
advocate in the viceroy's secretary Juan Valdez, the 
instructor of the Florentine monk Yermili, known to 
Protestant Europe as Peter Martyr. Yaldez, or one of 
his disciples, was the author of a book on the "Benefit 
of Christ," which was extensively circulated in Italy, 
Spain, France, and England, and incurred the special 
wrath of the Inquisition for " depreciating works as 
meritorious acts, and ascribing all merit to faith alone." 2 

1 Bern, in Ann. B. V. M. Sermon, i. 1,3. 

2 These are the words of the process which condemned the tract. 

2 a 2 



356 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



It was proof of heresy to be even a reader of this little 
book, 1 and the power of the Inquisition was so effectively 
exerted for its destruction, that it was believed that 
not a single copy had been left to posterity. An »old 
English translation, however, was reprinted by the Be- 
ligious Tract Society in 1847; and, since then, two 
copies, in Italian and French, dated 1543 and 1552, 
presented by Dr. Ferrari of ISTaples to St. John's Col- 
lege Cambridge, have been reprinted. 2 Yaldez possessed 
great influence among the nobility and the literary 
circles ; his opinions were largely diffused among the 
middle classes, and wherever the new power of the 
press could be exerted. The Inquisition complained 
that three thousand schoolmasters were infected by the 
heresy. 

The Italian reformers, though many sealed their 
confession with their blood, never contemplated actual 
separation from the Church of Eome, which then, even 
more than at present, stood in the place of religion 
itself to the bulk of their countrymen. Evangelical 
views had not yet received the formal condemnation 
of a council, nor been driven from the communion of 
the Holy See, by the Jesuits and the Inquisition. 
The hope of the Italians was to bring about a re- 
conciliation between the church and the protestants, 
on an evangelical basis, and this idea was encouraged 
by the pope himself. 

1 Pietro Carnesecchi suffered on this charge in 1567, and Aonio Paleario 
(supposed by many to be the author of the book) in 1570. 

2 The editor, the Rev. C. Babington, supports the pretensions of 
Paleario to the authorship. Laderchius, the continuator of Baronius, 
assigns it to Valdez, and his name is connected with the authorship in the 
process against Carnesecchi. The question is fully discussed in the Rev. J. 
Ayre's Introduction to the Religious Tract Society's edition (1859). It is 
not improbable that there were two tracts, one by Valdez (perhaps in 
Latin), and an enlargement by Paleario in Italian. 



ATTEMPTS AT RECONCILIATION. 



357 



Alexander Farnese, who succeeded Clement, by the 
title of Paul m., was a favourable specimen of the 
educated Eoman of that age. Nothing warrants the 
belief that his heart was touched with genuine piety ; 
his early years were even sullied by immorality. He 
was a man of the world, fond of elegant literature, and 
full of selfish ambition ; but his vices occasioned little 
scandal, his manners were gracious and popular, and, 
when his own interest did not interfere, he could do a 
virtuous act with an air of religion. His first resolve 
was to fill the Sacred College with the most eminent 
men in the church, without respect to any consideration 
but merit. He began with Gaspar Contarini, and on 
his recommendation appointed Pole, Caraffa, and several 
others. The new cardinals were authorised to submit a 
scheme for the reform of the papacy ; separate commis- 
sions were appointed for the Eota 1 and the Penitentiary. 
Contarini presented a report which went to place the 
papacy under the control of Scripture and reason. To 
subject the whole church to the will of one man, 
actively prone to evil and liable to numerous infir- 
mities, was a slavery (it said) so gross as to justify the 
Lutherans in stigmatising it as the Babylonish captivity. 
The pope was exhorted to submit all to God and the 
common good. The good cardinal entertained the 
highest hopes from the " Christian manner " in which 
Paul received his labours. 2 

The pontiff responded with greater alacrity to the 
demand for a council. He liked the character and 
power of a mediator ; and his greatest anxiety was to 

1 The supreme court of appeal for ecclesiastics ; so called from the 
floor of the chamber where it sits being tesselated in the figure of a 
wheel. It was founded by John xxn., and is composed of twelve prelates of 
different nations, wearing the violet robe and cord. — Morerjj's Diet. 

2 Ranke. 



358 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



stand well with the two great European monarchs, 
Charles and Francis, to both of whom he succeeded in 
allying his family by marriage, while he knew them to 
be actuated by a consuming jealousy of each other. 
Paul sent Contarini as nuncio to the emperor, and 
under his mediation an assembly of divines, papal and 
protestant, arrived at an agreement, which fully ad- 
mitting the doctrine of justification by faith, was en- 
tirely satisfactory to Melancthon and Bucer. Luther, 
whose greatest failing was intolerance of other men's 
labours, ridiculed it as a patchwork combination of two 
creeds. He was all too zealously seconded at Eome. 
CarafFa, who had always opposed Contarini' s doctrine, 
carried the bulk of the cardinals with him. The pope 
hesitated, unwilling either to approve or reject. Fran- 
cis i. remonstrated with much warmth ; the last thing 
he desired was the reunion of Germany. He affected 
great alarm for the faith : the pope and the church 
were in danger ; their eldest son would defend them 
with his life. Charles's enemies in Germany supported 
the cry. The duke of Bavaria, the elector of Mentz, 
and the violent papists, wanted no accommodation. The 
moderate party were overborne, and Contarini' s formula 
was rejected by the pope as well as by Luther. 

Both, in fact, were equally averse to toleration. 
Neither would be satisfied with less than victory ; and 
though they continued to appeal to a general council, 
each side required it to be so constituted as to secure 
the victory to itself. In the pope's idea, a general 
council could only be called by himself, and must pro- 
ceed on a recognition of his supremacy in the church. 
To Luther this supremacy was the manifestation of 
Antichrist, What he meant by a free council was a 
synod of all orders, called by the emperor, and ruled 
only by the Word of God. Such a synod obviously 



COUNCIL OF TRENT. 



351) 



pre-supposed the abrogation of the papal supremacy. 
Discovering, at last, the impossibility of proceeding with 
his own reformation till the protestants were got out of 
the way, Paul told the emperor, at his visit to Eome in 
April 1535, that nothing but force remained. Charles 
assented, but still thought a council necessary to justify 
resort to the sword. Henceforth the destruction, not 
the reconciliation, of the protestants was the object in 
view. 

Several places were named for the council, but the 
diet refusing to go out of Germany, the city of Trent 
was at last agreed upon. As the protestants steadily 
refused to attend, it was from the first nothing but a 
synod of the Eoman obedience. The discussions were 
regulated at every point by orders from Eome. The 
legates who presided allowed no question to be mooted 
without the pope's previous sanction. Couriers were 
continually posting to and fro, and the wits of France 
wondered if the Spirit of Inspiration could be conveyed 
from the tombs of the apostles in a cloak-bag. 

The council was not opened till the 13th December 
1545, when the breach with England was complete by 
the bulls of excommunication fulminated against Henry 
on the 17th December, 1538. Consequently this king- 
dom was not even nominally represented in the synod, 
and is in no way bound by its decrees. Neither were 
its decrees waited for, to attack the German protestants. 
The emperor took the field against them early in 1546, 
and having defeated and taken prisoners both the elector 
and landgrave, he was master of all Upper Germany. 
These successes alarmed the pope, who never meant 
to augment the imperial power. He adjourned the 
council to Bologna, and soon came to an open rupture 
with Charles, for seizing Parma, which Paul had erected 
into a duchy for his son Pier Luigi. Suspecting the 



360 



THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



emperor, farther, of complicity in the young duke's as- 
sassination, the pope threw himself into the French cause 
with all the fury of revenge. He threatened to ally 
himself with the dey of Algiers and drive the Spaniards 
out of Naples. He would have every Spaniard in 
Eome assassinated. In the midst of his rage, he made 
the discovery that the grandsons, for whom he had 
sinned and suffered, were making their own terms with 
his enemy. This treachery broke his heart; the old 
man fell into a fatal passion, and died 10th November 
1549, at 83 years of age, more beloved than many a 
better man. His nepotism, exceeding the usual average 
of the Yatican, had purchased great connections abroad. 
One grandchild was married to the emperor's natural 
daughter; a French prince of the blood aspired to the 
hand of another ; a third was a cardinal. With all his 
disposition to reform, Paul suffered no abatement of 
papal prerogative. It was under this pope, so genial, 
popular, and in many respects tolerant, that its two most 
bloodthirsty agencies — Jesuitism and the Inquisition — 
took their rise. 

The next pontiff, Julius hi., gratified the emperor 
by the return of the council to Trent. The triumph of 
his arms induced some of the protestant princes to 
send ambassadors, and Charles began again to cherish 
the hope of a reconciliation. The illusion was quickly 
dispelled. Octavius Farnese, recovering Parma through 
the justice or the policy of Julius, invited the French to 
garrison it. Their appearance in Italy was the signal 
for fresh disturbances. They renewed negotiations with i 
the German protestants ; their troops advanced to the 
Ehine. At the same time, Maurice of Saxony entered 
the Tyrol, and, driving the emperor from Insbruck, 
narrowly missed taking him prisoner. While the legates 
at Trent were plotting to exclude the protestant dele- 



RELAPSE OF THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT. 361 

gates from any real voice in the council, news arrived 
that the elector had taken the cause into his own hands. 
The bishops hastened away to their sees, and the legates 
prorogued the synod, which did not meet again for ten 
years. The fortune of war turning against Charles, the 
treaty of Passau (1552) closed the hostilities and secured 
to the protestant states liberty of religion, with the 
possession of the church benefices, and the right of 
admission, in due proportion, to the imperial chamber. 

This completed the triumph of the Eeformation in 
Germany. In England, it suffered a check by the 
death of Edward vi. Julius was comforted for the 
loss of Germany, by the humiliating spectacle of the 
English lords and commons, on their knees before his 
legate in Westminster Hall, imploring and receiving his 
absolution. The courtiers who thus sacrificed the spiri- 
tual fruits of the Eeformation to the will of their queen, 
were less prodigal of its temporal profits. They stipu- 
lated so stoutly for the retention of the church lands, 
that cardinal Pole was obliged to concede the point ; and 
though he told them it would be mortal sin to take 
advantage of the permission, it was immediately secured 
by act of parliament. The emperor had the gratification 
of seeing his cousin, with all her kingdom, formally 
reconciled to Eome, and her marriage consummated with 
his son Philip. This was the last gleam in the che- 
quered lives both of pope and emperor. Julius died 
wallowing in infamous pleasures, 23rd March, 1555. 
A few months after, Charles voluntarily abdicated all 
his crowns, and withdrew, worsted and weary of life, to 
end his days in the convent of St. Just. 



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CHAPTEE XIV. 

THE PAPAL REACTION. 

Cardinal Caraffa — Order of Theatins — Resistance of Evangelical 
Doctrine — Election and Death of Marcellus — Accession of Caraffa 
as Paul iv. — Reception of English Ambassadors — Excommunication 
of Elizabeth— Spanish Armada— Popes quarrel with Spain — Political 
Disappointments— Ecclesiastical Reforms — The Inquisition — Death 
of Paul — Popular Rejoicings — Re-assembly of Council of Trent — ■ 
Concordats — Its Dissolution — Church on a new basis — Tradition 
joined with Scripture — Doctrine of Justification — False Principles — 
Original Sin — Seven Sacraments— Transubstantiation — Adoration of 
the Host — Confession — Sacrifice of the Mass — Penance — Extreme 
Unction — Orders — Celibacy of the Clergy — Marriage and Divorce- 
Purgatory — Invocation of the Saints — Doctrine of Developement — 
Heresy — Schism of the Papists — Questions of Discipline — Tumults — 
Compromises — Supremacy of the Pope in Spirituals — Limitation of 
Temporal Power — Xew Creed — Spread of the Reformation — Inquisi- 
tion at Rome — Institution of the Jesuits — Subjugation of Conscience 
— Last Papal Crusade — Political Tactics — Germany and France — 
Massacre of St. Bartholomew — Conspiracies in England and Ireland — 
Sanguinary Results. 

If the prominence due to Luther in the Protestant Befor- 
niation, may he assigned to any individual in the papal 
reaction, it would be Giampietro Caraffa, the Neapolitan 
Dominican. Born of one of the most illustrious houses in 
Italy, 1 he was a man of earnest devotion and unblemished 
life, with an inflexible zeal for religion. Aiming always 
at the strictest spirituality, he was never known to make 
a compromise or a concession. His family interest 

1 The name is said to be derived from a valiant commander, who, in the 
wars of Otho, lost his life in saving the emperor's. His grateful master, 
beholding the dead body on the field, exclaimed, " caret fe" (Oh ! precious 
loyalty !), from which words the family adopted their name. The story adds 
that the emperor placed his hand on the heart of the warrior, and left the 
impression of his three fingers on the bloody corslet, whence the three 
bars in the shield of the Caraffas. 



364 



THE PAPAL KEACTI0X. 



having obtained him, when young, a bishopric and an 
archbishopric, he resigned both to found the new order of 
Theatins, for the reformation of the clergy. These were 
priests, with the vows of a monk; they devoted them- 
selves to preaching, visiting the sick, and carrying the 
sacrament to the dying. Instead of going about begging, 
they waited for alms, in simple faith, at home. Caraffa 
preached with a now of vehement eloquence, which, 
together with his rank and piety, gave him an extra- 
ordinary influence with the upper classes. Contarini, 
with whom he was associated in the spiritual exercises 
of the Oratory, recommended him to Paul iii., who 
made him cardinal, and archbishop of his native city. 
Charles, however, so dreaded his uncompromising prin- 
ciples, and the attachment of his family to French 
interests, that he never suffered him to sit in the state 
council, or to enjoy his preferment in peace. 

As dean of the Sacred College, Caraffa' s voice was 
ever loudest in the demand for ecclesiastical reform : 
he burned to see the Holy Eoman Church restored to 
her primitive purity and power. So far he was cor- 
dially at one with his friend and benefactor, Gaspar 
Contarini. In doctrine, however, the two cardinals 
were on the opposite sides of the ridge which still 
divides the protestant from the popish waters. Caraffa 
was the first to object to Contarini' s basis of recon- 
ciliation. As one of the presiding cardinals at Trent, 
he defended vigorously the dogma of inherent against 
imputed righteousness. ' Seeing the full force of the dis- 
tinction, and the impossibility of effecting a recon- 
ciliation by argument or reform, he deliberately ad- 
vocated the destruction of his opponents by the sword. 
The emperor's moderation he regarded as dictated by 
animosity to the pope. When asked for his own advice, it 
was thorough : he recommended to Paul in. the establish- 



CARDINAL CARAFFA. 



365 



ment at Eome of a neAV Inquisition, on the Spanish 
model, and was himself the first president. He was 
heartily for reform, but it must be reform by authority, 
and the first step was the extirpation of all heretics. 

On the death of Paul in. the influence in the con- 
clave fell to the more religious party. They elected the 
hope and admiration of the times, Marcellus n. ; and 
when death robbed them of him, on the twenty-second 
clay of his pontificate, transferred the tiara to Caraffa. 
Conscious that he had never stooped to conciliate a single 
vote, the new pope, who took the name of Paul, re- 
garded himself as chosen by God, more than by his brother 
cardinals. His first bull enunciated the object to which 
his elevation was dedicated — "We promise and swear 
to endeavour truly that the reform of the universal 
Church and of the Eoman court be effected." 1 

The character of the reforms in contemplation was 
no secret. The English ambassadors arriving the very 
day of his election, with the submission of the realm, 
Paul iv. refused to admit them, because Mary called 
herself queen of Ireland, in pursuance of an act passed 
in her father's reign, (1542) to erect that island into a 
kingdom. Paul had read that it belonged to the pope 
alone to create, confer, and take away kingdoms : he ex- 
cluded the ambassadors until he had himself erected 
Ireland into a kingdom, and conferred the crown upon 
Mary. His next objection was to the condition respect- 
ing the church lands. Julius had exceeded his autho- 
rity in entering into such a stipulation : the law of God 
and the church was imperative ; so long as a foot of con- 
secrated ground remained in lay hands, the holocausts of 
Smithfield were unavailing. The ambassadors perceived 
at once that this decision was destructive of the recon- 
ciliation. The queen stood alone in the wish to make 

1 Ranke, iii. 4. 



366 



THE EAFAL REACTION. 



restitution, and her scruples were too deeply dyed in 
blood to commend themselves to her subjects. Parlia- 
ment was resolved to maintain the penalty of praemunire 
against all who should trouble the existing settlement of 
property, and the death of the unhappy queen, deserted 
by her husband, alienated from her sister, and detested 
by her once-loving subjects, closed the door against Eome 
for ever. 

Paul iv. was not the man to part from us in peace. 
He hurled his anathema at Elizabeth in the spirit of a 
Ilildebrand or a Lothaire ; he cast her out of the church, 
took away her crown, absolved her subjects from the oath 
of allegiance, and gave the kingdom to whatever prince 
would conquer it. But (alas for Paul !) Elizabeth had 
a Church of her own, a hand to guard her crown, and a 
people who laughed at the pope's absolution. When 
the Spanish armada appeared to conquer the prize, Drake- 
could finish his game at bowls before he went to disperse 
it, and the gallant Howard taught the pope how little 
his authority ought to weigh, even with a Eomanist, 
against his honour, his sovereign, and his country. 

Paul hated the Spaniards worse than the English; 
their attachment to his religious communion could 
not conquer the political dislike with which he 
viewed their ascendancy in Italy. His family had 
always supported the French in Naples, and Paul be- 
lieved that France was the ally pointed out by nature 
and Providence for the defence of the Holy See. He 
longed to drive the Spaniards back to their own 
peninsula, and recover the golden days of Italian 
independence. These antipathies involved him in dis- 
putes, both with the brother and the son of Charles v., 
which ended in his own mortification. He refused 
to recognise Ferdinand's succession to the empire, 
because the resignation was not made to himself : 



PAPAL REFORMATION. 



3G7 



with Philip, who succeeded in Spain, Italy, and the 
Netherlands, he provoked a war which resulted in his 
own total discomfiture, and left the Spanish ascendancy 
more firmly established than ever. These political en- 
tanglements, which consumed the first half of Paul's 
pontificate, only served to delay the reforms he was so 
anxious to promote in the church, and to strengthen the 
protestant cause. 

The pope's friends were equally disappointed to see 
him pursuing the old routine of nepotism, with as much 
ardour as if the idea of reform had never been broached. 
With all his piety, Paul clung to the temporal grandeur 
of the papacy as a primary requisite. One nephew he 
made a duke, another a marquis, a third a cardinal. 
Suddenly discovering the unworthiness of these favoured 
relatives, he banished them at once from his presence 
and his affections, and even pursued their families with 
the sentence of perpetual exile. 

After proving, by these bitter experiences, the hol- 
lowness of the old secular papacy, Paul returned to his 
first ardour, and began to prosecute the ecclesiastical 
reforms by which he still hoped to reconquer the world. 
Resuming the long-neglected duties of the episcopate, 
the aged pope preached in a way to recall the memory of 
his youthful eloquence. He made the cardinals preach 
also ; visiting the churches and correcting abuses with 
inflexible severity. Nor did he omit to put forth his 
terrible vigour for the suppression of heresy. The 
Inquisition was his favourite establishment. He made 
a point of attending its meetings, authorised it to apply 
torture to the suspected, and suffered no respect of per- 
sons to arrest the process. He even established the 
feast of St. Dominions in honour of the first inquisitor. 
The Eomans exclaiming under this unwonted discipline, 
some of the cardinals themselves were thrown into 



368' 



THE PAPAL REACTION. 



prison, on suspicion of protestant tendencies. Eome 
was no safe residence for an inquiring spirit. The 
population, which numbered 80,000 under Leo x., 
sunk to 45,000, and the hunted flock had often sighed 
to be rid of its terrible pastor, when the stern old 
man expired, at the age of 83. Never was any death 
received with such indecent exultation. The populace 
tore down his statues, and kicked the triple- crowned 
heads about the streets ; then, rushing to the Inquisition, 
they released seventeen hundred prisoners, and set fire to 
the building. Every monument with the name and arms 
of Caraffa was defaced. 

This pope unquestionably laid the foundation on which 
alone the Latin communion could be partially recon- 
structed. His specious reforms and his repulsive severity 
were alike indispensable ; for while the world was sick of 
the old abominations, it was impossible to admit liberty 
and inquiry without shaking the papacy to its founda- 
tions. Paul iv. was the last of the old imperial popes. 
The Hildebrand policy could never be revived. The 
dream of universal empire had been dissipated by the 
successful revolt of so many powerful states. The next 
pope perceived the necessity of placing the papacy itself 
under the protection of the sovereigns, whom it once 
affected to create and depose. Pius iv. reassembled the 
council of Trent, neither to recover nor to destroy the 
protestants, but simply to strengthen his own commu- 
nion with the secular powers that still adhered to it. 
Austria, France, and Spain demanded reforms, which 
no pope can concede with safety to his own posi- 
tion. The question was how to put them off, with- 
out relmquishing his indispensable prerogatives. Not 
in the council, but by concordats with the several 
courts, were these difficulties adjusted. The coun- 
cil was chiefly used to enunciate anti-protestant 



SCHISM ATICAL EFFECTS. 



369 



dogmas, which was the last thing desired by the princes : 
so that every one rejoiced when its sessions ended, 
on the 3rd December 1563. Pins confirmed all its 
definitions and decrees, taking care to assert that he 
was free to disallow them all, and reserving to the 
Holy See the all-important power of interpretation. 
The long pending dispute between the papacy and the 
church was thus brought to a conclusion. The Eoman 
obedience was restored to peace within itself, but it was 
at the cost of cutting off the dissentients, and establish- 
ing a new basis, unknown to catholic antiquity. Up to 
this time the Latin church, while admitting many cor- 
ruptions, had never formally repudiated vital truth. 
The Church of Eome was still contained in the Catholic 
Church. This position was now formally abandoned. 
The Council of Trent separated the papal communion 
from the common foundation, and precipitated it into 
schism. This was done, not only by excommunicating 
churches unquestionably orthodox, but by admitting 
rank heresy into its own fundamental definitions. 

Contrary to the wish of the sovereigns, the pope 
determined to define the doctrines of the church before 
reforming its discipline. The council began with the 
rule of faith ; and though in all the primitive councils 
nothing but Holy Scripture was recognised in that cha- 
racter, it was now decreed that equal regard is due to 
the books of the Old and New Testaments (including 
the Apocrypha), and to the unwritten traditions received 
by the apostles from the mouth of Jesus Christ, and 
delivered, under the dictation of the Holy Ghost, from 
hand to hand to the church of the present day. It 
was assumed that the existing doctrine of Eome was 
in accordance with such traditions, and as the pope 
was constituted interpreter of every doubt, he was 
thus enabled to pronounce any dogma divine without 

2 b 



370 



THE PAPAL REACTION. 



possibility of appeal. This was in effect to equal the 
word of man with the word of God, and subvert the 
chief foundation of Christianity. The decree did not 
pass without opposition. The bishop of Chiozza con- 
tended that everything necessary to salvation was 
written in the Bible ; but the immense majority was 
against him. A second decree declared the Eoman 
Vulgate to be authentic scripture, though at the same 
time a new and more exact edition was ordered to be 
prepared. Thus a translation notoriously imperfect was 
placed on equality with, if not above, the original, 1 
which alone can pretend to the authority of inspiration. 

Having thus tampered with the standard of faith, the 
council proceeded to its most important article. Justifi- 
cation by faith only was the foundation of the whole 
body of Protestant doctrine. This was clearly perceived 
by the Eoman divines ; accordingly, all their learning was 
tasked to produce another definition. The result was an 
elaborate treatise, of sixteen chapters, on grace, in which 
the council declared that justification consists, not in the 
remission of sins only, but in sanctification also. It has 
five causes — the final, which is the glory of God and 

1 The Roman Vulgate was not even a homogeneous translation. The 
Psalter was revised by Jerome, from the old Latin Vulgate, which was a 
version from the Septuagint, made in Africa by some unknown hand, in the 
second century. The other canonical books of the Old Testament (with Judith 
and Tobit), were an original translation by Jerome from the Hebrew ; the re- 
mainder were from the old Latin Vulgate, unrevised. The New Testament 
was the old Latin, revised by Jerome. The printed texts at the time of the 
council were Mazarin's (1455), and the Complutensian Bible (1502 — 17), 
but neither was satisfactory, and the new edition ordered by the council 
did not appear till forty-five years after its dissolution ; so that this 
assembly really gave the authority of Scripture to something not yet in 
existence. Nor did the absurdity end there. The Sixtine edition (1590), 
which first claimed the submission of the Church under this decree, was 
so erroneous that Clement vm. issued an improved version (1592) ; yet both 
were invested with absolute authority over the conscience by " the 
fulness of apostolic power " in those two popes ! 



DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION. 371 

eternal life ; the efficient, which is God ; the meritorious, 
which is Christ ; the instrumental, which is the sacra- 
ment ; and the formal, which is the righteousness given 
by God to each, according to the good pleasure of the 
Holy Ghost. A belief in the forgiveness of our sins is 
not justifying faith ; every one must remain, to the end 
of life, in doubt whether he is justified or not. The 
just are justified more and more by keeping the com- 
mandments of God and the church. Eepentance after 
baptism demands not only contrition, but also sacra- 
mental confession with sacerdotal absolution, and, more- 
over, some satisfaction for the temporal punishment, 
which is altogether remitted only in baptism : grace is 
lost by mortal sin, even though faith may remain. The 
justified obtain eternal life by the mercy of God, and as 
a reward of their good works, in virtue of the promise. 
Finally, it was concluded that this doctrine does not esta- 
blish our own righteousness to the exclusion of God's, 
but that the same righteousness is ours, as dwelling in 
us, and God's, as coming from Him by the merits of 
Christ. 

This conclusion was in direct opposition, and was 
meant to be so, to the doctrines of Luther. Both ad- 
mitted two kinds of righteousness, imputed and inherent; 
but whereas Luther ascribed justification wholly to the 
former — that is, to the merits of Christ only — the decree 
conceives the imputed righteousness of Christ to be 
merged in our own, not as completing, but as producing 
it. Luther required an inward regeneration, followed by 
good works ; still, as such works are never perfect or 
meritorious, he ascribed their acceptance, and the entire 
justification of the believer, to the merits of Christ. 
The decree also relies on the merits of Christ, but limits 
their operation to producing in us the regeneration 
and good works to which eternal life is finally granted. 

2 b 2 



THE PAPAL REACTION. 



In the one scheme, justification is all of grace; in the other, 
it is of works, originating, indeed, in Divine grace, but 
perfected in ourselves by the instrumentality of the 
sacraments, and our own obedience to God and the 
church. 1 

This complex tissue of false doctrine was not ad- 
mitted without strenuous resistance. Xo Protestant 
divines were present to oppose it, but their sentiments 
found utterance from several in the council. 2 Ambrose 
Catharin maintained that though justification was not 
the effect of such a confidence, yet the just could, and 
ought to, believe they were in grace. He quoted 
Augustin, Ambrose, Prosper, Anselm, and other fathers 
to prove that there was no good work without grace ; 
consequently, justification preceded works. He urged 
the council to follow the fathers in preference to 
the schoolmen, and to rely upon Scripture, the true 
fountain of theology, rather than the subtleties of 
scholastic philosophy. 3 Marinier affirmed with St. Paul 
that faith only justifies, and that the believer should 
enjoy the assurance of grace. He was at once suspected 
of Lutheran tendencies, and compelled to retract. 
Cardinal Pole vainly entreated the council not to con- 
demn an opinion merely because it was Luther's; it was 
too clear that such was the determination. Yet Seripand, 
the general of the Augustinian order, while protesting 

1 Ranke, ii. 1 ; Fra Paolo, ii. Ixxxiii. Sarpi justly observes that " the 
point of the difficulty was this, whether a man is first justified, before any 
works of righteousness, or whether he becomes justified by the works of 
righteousness which he performs " (Ixxvi). 

2 " The archbishop of Sienna and the bishop of Cava, Giulio Contarini, 
bishop of Beliuno, and with him five divines, attributed justification solely 
and wholly to the merits of Christ, and to faith. Charity and hope they 
declared to be the attendants, or handmaidens, works the proof of faith, 
but nothing more ; they held that the sole ground of justification was 
faith." — Ranke, ii. 1. 

3 Fra Paolo, ii. Ixxvi. 



FUNDAMENTAL EKKORS. 



373 



against Luther, sustained the views of Cardinal Contarini 
(who was now dead) on imputed righteousness and the 
non- validity of works. 

The determined hostility to Protestantism, with 
the arguments of the schoolmen, carried the day. 
Caraffa led the debate from the chair. He was seconded 
by Laynez, the new general of the new order of Jesuits, 
who produced a treatise rather than a reply, in 
answer to the evangelical doctrine. The Franciscans 
took the same side ; partly, no doubt, because their 
old enemies, the Dominicans, quoted Thomas Aquinas 
on the other. They argued, with much heat, that it 
was absurd to suppose that God made no difference 
between a man who lived well, by the light of nature, 
and one who was plunged in all manner of vice ; there 
was a reason for giving grace to one and not to another ; 
to deny this was to make men indifferent to good deeds, 
and afford the wicked an excuse from the want of 
grace. 

The evangelical and moderate views were overborne. 
And in these two articles, tradition and justification, the 
Council of Trent laid the foundation on which ail their 
after conclusions were built. Tradition was received 
because the Holy Ghost dwells perpetually in the church ; 
the Yulgate, because the Church of Rome has been kept 
free from ail error by the special grace of God. 1 From 
these false principles it was easy to draw any conclusion 
that might at any time be desired by the Eoman See. 
To the definition of original sin a clause was appended, 
exempting the Virgin Mary, whose Immaculate Con- 
ception was maintained by the Franciscans and denied by 
the Dominicans. The pope had not yet decided either 
for or against this tradition. The question was therefore 



1 Ranke, ii. 1, 5. 



374 



THE PAPAL REACTION. 



kept open till our own day, when it was ruled by a bull 
of pope Pius ix. in favour of the Franciscan view. 2 

By virtue of the same principles, the sacraments of 
the New Testament were declared to be neither more nor 
less than seven — all instituted by Christ, and conferring 
grace ex opere operato — because this was the actual 
number in the Church of Eome ; their work, according 
to the doctrine of justification, was to infuse more grace. 
In like manner, the doctrine of baptism was defined to be 
that of the Eoman Church, " the mother and mistress of 
all Churches." 

With regard to the Eucharist, the Dominicans denied 
both the natural and the sacramental presence of Christ. 
They understood by transubstantiation a Eeal presence, yet 
not as Christ is present in heaven, but of a kind peculiar 
to the sacrament. This was approaching very closely to 
the doctrine of Luther. The Franciscans argued for a 
natural presence as to the substance, and a supernatural 
as to the quantity, which sounds very like nonsense. 
Each party advanced grave objections to the definition of 
the other, but neither could establish its own theory. 
The decree was, therefore, framed in general terms — that 
by the words of consecration the substances of bread 
and wine are converted into the substance of the Body 
and Blood of Christ, anathematising all who should deny 
that the Eucharist contains, truly, really, and substan- 
tially, the Body and Blood, with the Soul and Divinity of 
Jesus Christ, or affirm that He is present only in 
sign, figure, or virtue ; or that the substances of bread 
and wine remain along with the Body and Blood of 
Christ. 

2 This doctrine affords a good proof of the falseness of the Roman 
foundation. To be true in fact it must have been all along a genuine tradi- 
tion, taught by Christ and His apostles, and preserved by the Holy Ghost 
in the church ; yet for ages it was not admitted ; the Dominicans, the 
Inquisitors of the faith, denied it. Where was the tradition then ? 



THE SACIiAMENTS. 



375 



With the same determination to condemn the Pro- 
testants and uphold the established worship, it was 
ordered that the Host should be reserved in churches 
with a light burning before it ; that it should be carried 
in procession to the sick, and be adored with the worship 
due to God Himself. At the same time an anathema 
was pronounced on all who should call such worship by 
its natural appellation of idolatry. Another anathema 
was hurled at those who taught that faith was a sufficient 
preparation for communicating ; all who are conscious of 
mortal sin being required further to have recourse to 
sacramental confession. 1 The mass was pronounced to 
be a true and proper, but unbloody, sacrifice, propitiatory 
for the living and the dead. Communion in one kind was 
declared to be sufficient for all but the celebrant, though 
the cup might be granted, as an indulgence, at the discre- 
tion of the church. Private masses, in which the priest 
alone received, were approved, as offered for all the 
faithful. 

The sacrament of penance was defined as consisting 
of the priest's words, ego te absolvo, for the form, and 
for the matter, contrition, confession, and satisfaction. 
It was instituted by Christ for the reconciliation of sin- 
ners after baptism. The doctrine of Jerome and the 
fathers, that absolution is only a declaratory act, was 
anathematised as heretical, and the priest's sentence was 
pronounced to be a judicial remission of sin, in virtue of 
Christ's words in John xx. 33. 

Extreme unction was also declared a proper sacra- 
ment, of which the oil is the matter, and the minister's 
words the form. The benefit is the gift of the Holy 
Ghost to efface the remains of sin and comfort the soul ; 
and, further, to restore bodily health when it would be 
spiritually advantageous. 

1 Cone. Trid.iv. 19. 



376 



THE PAPAL REACTION. 



The sacrament of orders was defined as effecting a 
visible external priesthood, instituted by God to con- 
secrate, offer, and administer the sacrifice of the mass, 
and to remit and retain sins. To affirm that priests 
are merely ministers to preach the word of God (the 
charge that Christ gave to His apostles) was punished by 
excommunication. Bishops were declared superior to 
priests, but the Divine institution of the episcopal order, 
though warmly urged by the French and Spanish 
prelates, was evaded after many debates, in order to 
restrict the apostolical succession to the person of the 
pope. A proposition to reconsider the law of celibacy, 
earnestly pressed by the emperor, found only two sup- 
porters among the bishops. This notorious fountain 
of impurity was unanimously retained, and made 
obligatory on all of the degree of subdeacon and 
upwards. To the objection that all have not the same 
gift, it was answered (in direct contradiction to Christ) 
that God will not refuse the gift to any who ask it of 
Him. 

Marriage was declared to be a sacrament, partly from 
the word being used of it in the Yulgate translation of 
Eph. v. 32, and partly because Christ has merited grace 
to sanctify those who are married — a reason equally 
applicable to every other relation in life. 1 The marriage 
tie was affirmed to be dissolved by either party taking 
the monastic vows ; but not by adultery, — the only cause 
allowed by Christ. 2 To remit the cognisance of niatri- 

1 It shocked some persons to be told that clandestine marriages were 
true sacraments, and in the same breath that the church had always de- 
tested them, and pronounced them invalid ! 

2 The form of the canon anathematises those who shall say that the 
church has erred in teaching that the marriage tie is not broken by adul- 
tery. It is open, we are told, to affirm the rupture, but not to impute error 
to the church in teaching the contrary. Such are the pitfalls through 
which a disciple of the Tridentine religion has to pick his way ! 



PAPAL DEVELOPEMENTS. 



377 



monial causes to secular courts, was declared (in the 
face of all history) to be heresy. 

With the same hardy defiance of history and remon- 
strance, the council determined that the Catholic Church 
had alivays taught, in conformity with Scripture and 
tradition, the existence of a purgatory, where souls are 
benefited by the prayers of the faithful and the sacrifice 
of the mass ; 1 that the saints pray for men, and that it 
is beneficial to invoke their intercession and aid. "Who- 
ever calls this idolatry, or contrary to God's word and 
the honour of Jesus Christ, is excommunicated. Further, 
the images of Christ, the Yirgin, and the saints, are to 
be placed in churches and adored, because in them zue 
adore the persons they represent. This is the exact defi- 
nition of idolatry as given in the Second Commandment, 
and as held by the Hindus and other Gentiles to this 
day. 

When we compare these decrees with Scripture, and 
the teaching of the early fathers, the contradictions are 
obvious and amazing. It is difficult to understand how 
a body of divines, neither ignorant nor consciously 
fraudulent, should have ventured to bring forward such 
a mass of corrupt innovations — the dates of which were 
registered in their own annals — as a true representation 
of primitive Christianity. The problem is only solved 
by the doctrines of tradition and the infallibility of 
the Church of Rome. As long ago as TTildebrand, a 
justification was found for rescinding St. Paul's in- 
junction to pray in the vernacular language, by the 
dogma that the apostles and fathers had made con- 
cessions to the times, which the church was bound to 
withdraw, as soon as she was able. The Roman See does 
not admit primitive, or even apostolical, Christianity 

1 The Council wisely abstained from defining the value of Indulgences, 



378 



THE PAPAL REACTION. 



to be the whole counsel of God. There was a 
further revelation, not written or preached, never re- 
duced to practice, utterly unknown to every Christian 
for ages, nay condemned as impious, — which, never- 
theless, the Holy Ghost preserved, in the mysterious 
recesses of " the Church," till the Eoman See was 
inspired to enunciate it. From that moment it became 
entitled to equal respect with the gospel itself ! This 
theory, in fact, makes — not Christ or His apostles, but — 
the Church of Eome for the time being, the revealer 
of God to mankind. It was a similar heresy which 
gave birth to the Marcionite and other Gnostic corrup- 
tions of the early ages. Like the ISTovatians, Montanists, 
and Donatists, it admits of no religion out of the visible 
church, and of no church beyond its own communion. 

These decrees, deliberately adopted in the teeth 
of Scripture and the primitive fathers, and imposed as 
terms of communion upon all other Christians, undoubt- 
edly separated the Eoman see and its adherents from 
the Catholic Church. Before this formal act of schism, 
their position was fairly designated by the phrase 
" Eoman- Catholic," but the Tridentine confession re- 
quires a new appellation, and the only consistent one is 
Papist. To the pope the council committed the per- 
petual interpretation of the new religion. From the 
pope it accepted the direction and confirmation of its 
proceedings. In the pope it placed the central link of 
communion with Christ. With the pope it left the 
absolute sovereignty not of the church only, but of con- 
science and the eternal world. Finally, the pope im- 
posed a new creed, to be henceforth the symbol of the 
Papal sect, as the Mcene is of the Catholic Church. 

The dogmatic decrees were mostly settled at the 
earlier meetings of the council, and to prevent their 
being re-opened, the pope insisted on terming the second 



DEMANDS FOR REFORM. 



379 



assembly a continuation, rather than a new council, which 
in fact it was. The later meetings were mostly occupied 
with questions of discipline ; on these the princes and 
ambassadors were far more in earnest than the bishops 
and divines. The German powers demanded a searching 
reform of the Eoman court ; the grant of the communion 
in both kinds; permission for the clergy to marry; 1 re- 
laxation of the rules of fasting ; schools for the poor ; 
an expurgation of the breviary, legends and postils ; 
more intelligible catechisms ; church music after the 
modern taste ; and convent reformation. The French 
prelates, seconding all these demands, further asserted 
the superiority of a council over the pope, and their king 
insisted on the cup as the best means of allaying the 
disturbances in France. The Spaniards, on the other 
hand, vehemently opposed the concession either of the 
cup to the laity, or of marriage to the clergy ; and no 
agreement could be come to, but to leave both points to 
the discretion of the pope. The emperor complained 
that there were two councils sitting — one at Trent, the 
other, which was the true one, at Borne. Pius was 
himself disposed to allow the two great demands, but 
the cardinals insisted on celibacy, and the only concession 
eventually granted was the use of the cup in the domi- 
nions of Ferdinand. 2 

The dissensions ran, at one time, so high that the 
legates could hold no sitting of the council for ten 
months. The mob was divided into two furious fac- 
tions, shouting " Spain " and " Italy ;" blood even flowed 
in the streets, on the question whether pope or 

1 A memorial, supported by the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria, 
affirmed that not one priest out of fifty really kept the vow of celibacy. 
The children of celibates, even of cardinals and popes, were notorious at 
Rome. 

2 The bull is dated 15 April, 1564. The same concession was made to 
Bavaria, but withheld by the duke. 



380 



THE PAPAL REACTION. 



bishop were the true representative of the Good Shep- 
herd who gave His life for the sheep ! 1 Another quarrel 
on a point of precedence divided the Spaniards from 
the French, so that final agreement was only arrived at 
by the moderation of the princes. The emperor withdrew 
most of his demands, on an undertaking that they should 
be considered at Eome. The king of Spain abandoned 
the Divine authority of bishops, in order to gain the 
pope's support to his own arbitrary rule. The French 
Court was conciliated by the Cardinal de Guise, and, 
in the end, the long vaunted design of a " reform in 
the head and the members" subsided into negotiations 
for concordats between the Eoman pontiff and the several 
sovereigns of his communion. 

All that had been decreed at Pisa, Constance, and 
Basle with respect to the subjection of the pope to a 
council, was virtually undone at Trent. The pope was 
left in the unquestioned headship of the Latin. Church, as 
to all spiritual matters. The bishops were everywhere 
reduced to mere delegates of the Holy See, and its eccle- 
siastical jurisdiction became absolute, except where 
limited by political concordats. On the other hand, 
the temporal sovereignty of Hildebrand and Innocent 
practically disappeared. The spiritual power, instead of 
commanding, was henceforward in every nation subject 
to the civil. In the States of the Church, only, the 
pope was supreme, and even there he was made to 
feel the force of international obligations, like other 
kings. 

In short, while the Protestant Eeformation pro- 
claimed liberty of conscience under the authority of 
God's word written, the reaction inaugurated by the 
Council of Trent effected only a partial transfer of 



1 llanke, iii. 7. 



SCHI8MATICAL CREED OF PIUS IV. 



381 



power from the pope to the crown. A more stringent 
church-discipline was enforced, and the most offensive 
abuses were removed, but no relief of conscience was 
obtained by any individual bishop, priest, or layman. 
The word of God was left more than ever a sealed 
book. The faith and worship of the Christian were 
more than ever prescribed to him by a human, yet 
arbitrary, authority. The yoke was rivetted by a new 
profession of faith, which every bishop is still obliged 
to subscribe and swear to. As the great Councils of 
antiquity preserved the unity of the church by re- 
citing the Catholic Creed, so Pius iv. put his seal on 
the Tridentine Schism, by adding the following articles, 
which continue to separate it from the rest of Christen- 
dom to the present day : — 

1. I most firmly receive and embrace the apostolical and eccle- 
siastical traditions, and all the other observances and constitutions 
of the Holy Catholic Chnrch. 

2. I do receive the Holy Scriptures in the same sense that Holy 
Mother Church does, and always hath, to whom it belongs to judge of 
the true sense and interpretation of them ; neither will I receive and 
interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of 
the Fathers. 

3. I do also profess that there are seven Sacraments, truly and 
properly so-called, instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ, and necessary 
to the salvation of mankind, though not all to every one, viz., Baptism, 
Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Orders, and 
Marriage, and that they do confer grace. I do also receive and admit 
the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, in the solemn 
administration of the above said Sacraments. 

4. I do embrace and receive all and everything that hath been 
defined and declared by the Holy Council of Trent, concerning original 
sin and justification. 

5. I do also profess, that in the Mass there is offered a true, 
proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and the dead ; and that 
in the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, there is truly, really, and 
substantially, the Body and Blood, together with the Soul and Divinity 
of our Lord Jesus Christ ; and that there is a change made of the 
whole substance of bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of 



382 



THE PAPAL REACTION. 



wine into the Blood, which change the Catholic Church calls Iran- 
substantiation. 

6. I confess also, that under one kind only, whole and entire Christ, 
and a true Sacrament, is taken and received. 

7. I do firmly hold that there is a purgatory, and that the soul* 
there detained are relieved by the suffrages of the faithful. 

8. I do likewise believe that the saints reigning together with 
Christ are to be worshipped and prayed unto ; and that they do offer 
prayers unto God for us, and that their relics are to be had in 
veneration. 

9. I do most firnily assert, that the images of Christ and the ever- 
Virgin Mother of God, and of the other saints, ought to be had and 
retained, and that due honour and veneration ought to be given to 
them. 

10. I do affirm that the power of Indulgences was left by Christ in 
the Church, and that the use of them is very beneficial to Christian 
people. 

11. I do acknowledge the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Eoman 
Church to be the mother and mistress of all Churches ; and hold that 
true obedience is due to the Bishop of Borne, the successor of St. Peter, 
the Prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ. 

12. I do also, without the least doubt, receive and profess all other 
things which have been delivered, defined, and declared by the sacred 
canons and oecumenical councils, and especially by the holy Synod of 
Trent ; and all things contrary thereunto, and all heresies whatsoever 
condemned, rejected, and anathematised by the Church, I do likewise 
condemn, reject, and anathematise. This true Catholic faith, without 
which no man can be saved, which at this time I freely profess and truly 
embrace, I will be careful (by the help of God) that the same be 
retained, and firmly professed whole and inviolate, as long as I live, 
and that, as much as in me lies, it be held, taught, and preached by 
those under my power, and by such as I shall have charge over 
in my profession. So help me God, and these His Holy Gospels. 

The Protestant Reformation, as might be expected, 
spread among the free populations of Europe, and the 
papal reaction among those which were subjected to 
arbitrary government. At the dissolution of the council 
of Trent, protestant opinions had extended far and wide 
oyer the Germanic, Sclavonic, and Eomance nations. 1 



Ranke, v. i. 



> 



LOSSES OF THE PAPACY. 



Gustavus Yasa made them the condition of ascending 
the throne of Sweden by his will in 1560. Albert of 
Brandeburg, grandmaster of the Teutonic order of 
Prussia, embraced them as early as 1524, when, sup- 
pressing the ecclesiastical and elective character of his 
office, he secularised the estates into a duchy under the 
crown of Poland, and, marrying, became an hereditary 
prince. Liyonia was added in 1561. In Poland proper, 
though the king was a papist, the majority of the senate 
and some of the bishops were protestant. The Hungarian 
diet were equally well inclined. The prince bishops of 
Franconia and the duke of Bavaria were unable to prevent 
many of their people from accepting the evangelical 
doctrines. Austria, Salzburg, and the Ehine were filled 
with them. In short, throughout the whole of Germany 
protestantism so predominated, that only one-tenth of the 
population remained in the popish faith. 

Scotland, embracing the Calvinistic form, was more 
hostile to Eome than the Lutherans. The same views 
were extensively disseminated in Prance and Italy. 
Three-fourths of the former kingdom were filled with 
them ; not one province was exempt. Churches orga- 
nised on the model of Geneva, obtained legal and recog- 
nised existence by the royal edict of Jan. 1562 : it was 
only the peasantry who continued steadfast in the Komish 
superstition. In the Netherlands the massacre of thirty 
thousand Protestants by the government of Charles v. 
could not extinguish their faith : their churches, also 
Calvinistic, acquired political recognition in 1562. The 
Moravian brethren, and the long-persecuted Waldenses, 
partook of the sunshine. An official report at Pome 
summed up the losses of the Holy See in these words : 
" England, Scotland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and 
all the northern countries, are alienated; Germany is all 
but lost ; Bohemia and Poland are largely infected. 



384 



THE PAPAL REACTION. 



Tlie low countries of Flanders are so far gone that 
the Duke of Alba's remedies will hardly recover them. 
Finally, France is full of confusion; so that nothing 
appears sound and secure to the papacy but Spain and 
Italy, with some few islands, and the Dalmatian and 
Greek possessions of the Venetian republic." 1 

Against this tide of evangelical truth, the main reliance 
of the papacy was placed on agencies more powerful 
than argument or the authority of the council of Trent. 
The council was wanted for the king and the clergy ; for 
the people the instrumentalities relied upon were the 
Inquisition and the Jesuits. The old Dominican inqui- 
sition having died out, its place was supplied in Spain by a 
royal commission, the success of which determined Caraffa 
to take similar measures at Eome. " It was in Rome," 
said the Cardinal, " that St. Peter vanquished the first 
heresiarchs ; in Eome must the successors of Peter 
subdue all the heresies of the world." 2 Not, however, 
with the weapons of St. Peter ; instead of wearing holes 
in the stones by prayer (as the apostle was said to have 
done), Caraffa persuaded Pius to erect a holy tribunal 
of universal inquisition. He gave up his own house 
for the purpose, and spent his own money in purchasing 
chains and locks to convert the rooms into dungeons. 
He undertook the office of first president with delight, 
laying down for his rules of action — 1. Instantaneous 
arrest on the slightest suspicion of heresy. 2. No respect 
of persons, and no regard to privilege, royal or episcopal. 

3. The utmost severity to all who sought protection from 
others ; mercy only to such as submitted and confessed. 

4. No toleration for heretics, especially Calvinists, on any 
consideration whatever. Eecantation or the stake was the 

1 Tiepolo, Relazione di Pio iv. e v. — Ranke, v. i. 

2 Bromato, Vit. di Paolo iv., vii., 3. Ranke, ii. 1. 



THE INQUISITION AT ROME. 



385 



inflexible alternative of these apostles of the new Tri- 
dentine Church ; more merciless than Mahommed, they 
excluded his middle course of tribute. It is a fearful 
alternative at any time ; but never was the wisdom of 
the old serpent more conspicuous, than in proposing it 
while the rising convictions were but slightly rooted in 
public opinion. The weak-minded, the timid, the un- 
conscientious, yielded at the first moment. For them, 
the new alliance of pontiff and king settled every scruple. 
The few of stronger minds, who found their doubts 
deepen under persecution, withdrew, when they could, 
into safer retreats. 

The States of the Church were crushed first. Ca- 
raffa subjected the press to the Inquisition, and broke 
up the literary movement at a blow. He hunted out 
and destroyed every suspected writing ; whole piles were 
burned at Eome, the little book on the " Benefit of the 
Death of Christ " being especially marked for destruction. 
It was in the course of these proceedings that the Index 
of prohibited books was first compiled. Milan, Naples, 
Tuscany, Venice, were reclaimed in the same fashion. 
The majority recanted before the alternative of death or 
flight. The fugitives found refuge in Germany and 
Switzerland; the sea and the flames disposed of the 
martyrs. At Yenice they were cast out of boats into 
the Adriatic. At Eome, the example of Petilius, who 
burned the books of Numa, was renewed in constant 
autos da fe before the Church of S. Maria alia Minerva. 

The second great agency of the reaction was the 
newly formed u Company of Jesus." This society owed 
its origin to Ignatius Loyola, a knight of Biscay, whose 
enthusiasm seemed to have not unfrequently exceeded the 
limits of sanity. 1 Its peculiarity was that, in addition 

1 Inigo Lopez de Recalde, of the house of Loyola, fought in defence of 
Pampeluna, when besieged by Francis t. (1521.) Disdaining to capitulate 

2 c 



386 



THE PAPAL REACTION. 



to the ordinary monastic vows, the members took an oath 
to obey without question the commands of the existing 
pope. " Although all Christians" (so runs the deed of 
incorporation) " are, by the gospel and the orthodox faith, 
subject to the Roman pontiff, as their head and the vicar 
of Jesus Christ, yet, for the greater humility of our 
society and the perfecting of individual mortification 
and abnegation of self-will, every member is to be bound, 
beyond the common obligation, by a special vow that 
whatsoever the Roman pontiff for the time being shall 
command, as much as in us lies we will perform." 1 
Ignatius was a soldier, and wished the Church and the 
conscience to be ruled, like the army, by word of command. 
The name " Company of Jesus," was borrowed from the 
military bodies, then usually known by the names of their 
commanders. His proposals received from Paul ni. but 
a hesitating and conditional sanction ; but their object 
was too congenial with the spirit of Caraffa to be declined. 
In three years, during which the founder benefitted by 
the knowledge of human nature, and the worldly wisdom, 
possessed by the court of Rome, the constitution of the 
new order was matured and approved (1540). 2 

with the rest of the garrison, he retired into the citadel, and held it with 
a single follower, till his leg was shattered by a cannon-ball. His wound 
disabling him from further service in the field, he dedicated himself, after 
the fashion of chivalry in that age, to be the Knight of Our Lady of Montser- 
rat, and in that character rode about vindicating her perpetual virginity by 
single combat. His visions may rival those of Swedenborg. "Some uncon- 
scious love of power, a mind bewildered by many theoretical errors, and 
perhaps some tinge of insanity, may be justly ascribed to Ignatius Loyola." 
Founders of Jesuitism, Stephen's " Essays onEccl. Biography," i. 249. Yet 
this author credits the enthusiast with genius, courage, and success beyond 
any other uninspired man. 

» Bull Kegimini, 27 Sept. 1540. 

2 It is admitted that some modifications were made in Loyola's designs ; 
and Caraffa was the man best qualified to mature his visionary concep- 
tions into a practical system. The deep knowledge of men and the crafty 
policy, which so strangely mix with the crazy romance of the Knight of 



THE JESUITS. 



387 



Ignatius boasted of being one of the first to support 
CarafFVs Inquisition. His bosom friend and successor, 
Iago Laynez, was the chief advocate of CarafFa's doc- 
trine of justification, at Trent. His principles and views 
were identical with CarafFa's; — to improve and educate 
the church, but to tolerate no divergence from its 
doctrine or discipline. Submission to the See of Eome 
was the first of all duties, and no consideration was 
to weigh for a moment against enforcing it. To main- 
tain this principle, the Jesuit constitutions require 
blind, unreflecting obedience from every member of the 
order to his superior, and from the superiors to the 
general, while in the general all are placed at the feet 
of the supreme pontiff. The discipline is all directed 
to the subjugation of the individual — body, soul, and 
spirit — to the will of his superior. The superior is not 
to be regarded as a fallible man, but as Christ himself ; 
whatever the superior commands is the command and will 
of God. 1 Not even mortal sin is to be pleaded against 
obeying an express command; 2 the obedience is to be 
absolute and unreasoning, perinde ac cadaver, as though 
the agent had neither mind, will, nor conscience of his 
own. Nay, conscience itself is subjected to the same 
yoke. Ignatius was the author of a work entitled 

Our Lady of Montserrat, may be safely ascribed to some wiser head among 
the astute members of the Roman Court. 

1 " Non intueamini in persona superioris horn in em obnoxium erroribus 
atque miseriis, sed Christum ipsum. 1 ' " Quicquid superior prsecipit ipsius 
Dei prseceptum esse ac voluntatem." — Const, vi. 1. 

2 This horrible constitution has, naturally enough, been doubted ; the 
words are: " Nullas constitutiones posse obligationem ad peccatum mor- 
tale vel veniale inducere nisi superior ea in nomine D. J. C. vel in virtute 
obedientise jubeat." — Const, vi. 5. The most obvious translation is that no 
one is bound to sin unless his superior commands him to sin ; but the words 
may mean that no written constitution or rule binds to any particular act 
under pain of sin, unless the superior commands that particular act to be 
done. This rendering grants a complete immunity at pleasure from every 
law of God or man not enforced at the moment by the living superior. 

2 c 2 



388 



THE PAPAL REACTION. 



" Spiritual Exercises," in which conversion is reduced 
to a system, to be learnt (like the manual and platoon 
exercise of the army) by every new recruit. The time 
allotted for the spiritual drill is four weeks, to be 
passed in seclusion, with a regular series of prayers and 
meditations for every day. These " exercises " are not the 
spontaneous effusions of a contrite heart, but the strict 
observance of the evolutions prescribed in the book. 
The spirit of military discipline pervades the whole ; all 
the faculties of the mind are subjugated to the imagina- 
tion, and the imagination itself is led captive to a series 
of prescribed contemplations. Seven "stations" are 
marked out in each day's course ; advancing from peni- 
tential to eucharistical subjects, till the exercises close 
in a vision of the divine beatitude, before which "all 
the delights and interests of this sublunary state are to 
be presented as a holocaust, to be consumed by- the un- 
dying flame of divine love on the altar of the regenerate 
heart." 1 

Along with much that is really spiritual and edify- 
ing, this system proceeds throughout on the unevan- 
gelical views of religion which produced the Tridentine 
definitions of grace. It is everywhere a religion of 
works. The heart is treated like a patient, to be healed 
by medicines from without, rather than revived within 
itself by the free spirit of God. When the prescribed 
course had been gone through, the young Jesuit was 
held to be "converted," and ready to join his regiment 
in any part of the world. The authors of this system 
had penetrated the secret how much easier it is to obey 
an external authority in the name of God, than to exercise 
ourselves in His law, and reconcile our own will to His. 
Liberty of conscience once extinguished in themselves, 

1 Essays in Eccl. Biography, by Sir J. Stephen, i. 164. Founders of 

Jesuitism. 



THE WORK OF THE JESUITS. 



389 



would, of course, be refused to others. The Jesuits 
would, of necessity, be the slaves of the papacy, in its 
endeavour to enslave mankind. The duties and destina- 
tions of the several members were carefully apportioned 
and imposed by authority. The monastic habit, the 
cloister, and the daily round of devotional exercises, 
were rejected, to make way for more necessary duties. 
The Jesuits gave themselves to preaching, confessing 
penitents, and educating the young. They were con- 
versant with theology and casuistry ; studied carefully 
the political views and private life of those to whom 
they were sent ; wound themselves, by means of the 
confessional and the academy, into the secrets of all 
hearts ; and neglected no learning, art, or artifice which 
could give them influence in the world. 

They were not without formidable opponents within 
their own church. The older monks and clergy disliked 
their freedom from ecclesiastical rule, and the exaltation 
of the u spiritual exercises " above the regular offices of 
the church. The orthodox revolted from the semi- 
Pelagian views which underlay Laynez's elaborate trea- 
tise, and found a fuller expression in the writings of 
Molina (1588). The popes themselves were alarmed at 
their ambition ; — Sixtus v. thought the Saviour's name 
profaned by their appropriation, and would have called 
them Ignatians. There is hardly a state in Europe, 
Papal or Protestant, that has not expelled them from 
its limits ; in the eighteenth century, the united demand 
of the Eoman Catholic powers compelled the pope to 
suppress the order altogether. 

Nevertheless, the Jesuits were incontestably the most 
efficient agents against the growth of Protestantism in 
Europe, while their missions in America and the East 
opened out conquests which, to a more spiritual church, 
might have abundantly compensated every other loss. 



390 



THE PAPAL REACTION. 



The peculiar principles of the order, however, dragged 
the missions, also, into suspicion. Eome itself was 
startled by an " economy" which incorporated the castes 
and rites of avowed idolatry into the Christian Church; 
which presented the gospel in the disguise of a forged 
Veda, and, instead of converting Brahmans to Chris- 
tianity, turned the Christians into Brahmans. 

These difficulties, however, were as yet in the future. 
The Council of Trent, with the Inquisition and the 
Jesuits for its ministers, inaugurated a last crusade for 
the papacy. The Italian and Spanish peninsulas, where 
the Church and the Crown were in intimate accord — 
where the aristocracy were careless or intolerant, and 
the people without power — were soon reported free from 
heresy. The Bible had taken no hold on the population, 
and the sparks of evangelical light, kindled here and 
there by literary and intellectual agencies, were easily 
trampled out. 

Beyond the Alps it was necessary to proceed differ- 
ently in different nations. The principle to be every- 
where asserted was the authority of the pope; — this, and 
this only, was divine : where the crown, the nobles, or 
the bishops were obedient to the Eoman See, their 
authority, also, was to be upheld as sacred ; but if this 
were not the case, the papacy never hesitated to appeal 
to the democracy, and counsel rebellion and revolution. 
The Jesuits were, therefore, incessantly engaged in poli- 
tical conspiracies. The doctrine of "the divine right of 
kings," from the use to which it was applied by our 
James n., is associated in many minds with popery ; but 
it was, in truth, a protestant reaction against the pre- 
tended sovereignty of the successor of St. Peter. When 
the pope claimed the dominion of the world from the 
text, " Thou art Peter," the reformers answered from 
Peter himself, " Submit yourselves to every ordinance 



POLITICAL TACTICS. 



391 



of man for the Lord's sake — to the king as supreme 1 
and from St. Paul, " The powers that be are ordained of 
God." 2 They taught that while every one must read 
and believe for himself, it was the special duty of those 
in authority to aid the people with the means of instruc- 
tion, and especially to disseminate the Holy Scriptures. 
In an age when power was wholly in the hands of 
government, and the people did little for themselves, it 
was natural to urge on the government the reformation 
of the national church, and to exhort the people to obey 
their native prince against a foreign usurper. 3 In so 
doing, writers and preachers, who were not infallible, 
sometimes attributed to the crown an authority in 
religious matters, which could not consistently be main- 
tained, and which they were the first to repudiate, 
when directed against themselves. 

This was conspicuously the case in England. The 
crown was allowed to be despotic in the cause of the 
Eeformation; Henry viii. erected a royal papacy, and was 
addressed by evangelical bishops and divines in terms 
which no English protestant now reads without a blush. 
Yet those same divines knew how to resist the royal au- 
thority in Mary ; they gave their bodies to the flames, 
rather than allow either pope or queen to dictate their 
religion. As the growth of constitutional principles 
divided the powers of government between the crown 
and the people, Protestantism, admitting of no sove- 
reignty over the conscience but the word of God, per- 
ceived that nothing in the Bible turns on the form of 

1 1 Peter ii. 13. 3 Rom. xiii. 1. 

3 Such was Luther's vein, who enjoyed the protection and encourage- 
ment of his prince. Zwingle and Calvin taught among republicans often 
in arms for their rights. Melancthon, again, would have had the Church 
reform herself by ecclesiastical synods. Most of the divergences observ- 
able in the systems of these great men may be traced to their social and 
political relations. 



392 



THE PAPAL REACTION. 



government, whether regal or republican. Kings were 
to be obeyed in so far only as the national law made 
them " supreme — not the crown but the " powers that 
be" are ordained of God. This discovery initiated a re- 
action against the Tudor type of royalty, which ended in 
the fall of royalty itself. Then, as one excess naturally 
produces another, the divine right of kings revived ; but, 
being allied with profligacy in Charles, and with popery 
in J ames, it never again obtained its former hold on the 
nation. 

In Germany, Luther, who owed his life and power 
of usefulness to the protection of the elector, also wrote 
strongly on the rights of princes. The Reformation was 
greatly promoted by their authority, and their influence 
was everywhere predominant. Here, therefore, the 
papacy also made every exertion to conciliate the tem- 
poral power, always urging that religious concessions 
must encourage political insubordination. It offered 
ecclesiastical patronage, and even grants of ecclesiastical 
revenues, as the price of supporting its pretensions ; and 
these inducements found willing listeners. 

The Jesuits were introduced into the universities 
of Bavaria, and authorised to open new schools in the 
towns and villages, while all the power of the state was 
employed against the protestants. The duke expelled 
them from the diet and all public offices. The magis- 
trates were forbidden to show the slightest toleration of 
their worship : even the peasantry were ordered to return 
to the Eoman Church or quit his dominions. These 
measures were so effectual that in two years (1570-1), 
the whole duchy was restored to the papacy, and the 
duke found his political power so increased by the 
exchange that, when in compliance with his own urgent 
representations at the Council of Trent, Pius iv. granted 
the use of the cup to his subjects, the duke actually 



REACTION IN GERMANY AND FRANCE. 



393 



suppressed the concession, and chose to be more popish 
than the pope. 1 Similar measures were pursued by the 
prince-bishops of Austria, and with the same gloomy 
results. In the Netherlands, however, the people offered 
a resistance, which not even the savage atrocities of Alva 
could extinguish. Ten thousand protestants are com- 
puted to have perished in his horrible persecutions ; but 
the struggle never ceased till the northern provinces 
achieved their independence, leaving Belgium to the 
undivided allegiance of Eome. 

The more complicated state of affairs in France gave 
occasions for 'all the turns of policy, which the court of 
Eome so well knows how to employ. It began with a 
close alliance with the crown. Henry n. exceeded his 
father Francis i., in the severity of his edicts against 
Protestantism. The order of Saint Esprit was established 
to attach the nobles to the falling Church, and the coun- 
sellors who presumed to recommend liberty of conscience 
were sent to the Bastile. The brief reign of Francis n. 
witnessed the execution of one of these prisoners, and 
the capital condemnation of the prince de Cond^, the 
chosen protector of the reformed Churches. The queen- 
mother Catherine de Medici, niece to pope Clement vn., 
and the young queen's uncles, the duke and cardinal de 
Guise, actively patronised the Jesuits. The Huguenots, 2 
as the French called the Calvinists, were favoured by 
the constable de Montmorenci and others of the French 

1 Ranke, v., 4. 

2 The origin of this word has been variously given. Some derive it 
from the name of a gate at Tours, near which their nocturnal assemblies 
were held ; others, from the Roi Hugon, the popular name of a goblin 
supposed to roam the streets of that city : but the most probable deriva- 
tion is from the Swiss word Eidgenossen, " confederates." The French Pro- 
testants were disciples of Calvin, who, after his establishment at Geneva, 
sent emissaries to his native country to rekindle the light temporarily 
extinguished by Francis i. 



394 



THE PAPAL REACTION. 



nobility, disgusted at the monopoly of power by the 
Guises. Catherine herself is charged with secretly 
encouraging the heretics in order to provide a counter- 
poise to this haughty family. Becoming regent by the 
death of Francis, this wily queen set Conde' at liberty, 
and even ordered a conference between the prelates and 
the Huguenot ministers, with a view to a reconciliation. 
At the " Colloquy of Poissy" — held in 1561, before the 
young king and his mother — Beza and Peter Martyr, with 
the most eminent protestant divines of France, argued 
in vain for their view of the Church and the Sacraments. 
The cardinal of Lorraine, sustained by all the French 
prelates, declared it impossible to unite to the church 
men who rejected the real presence of the Body of 
Christ in the Eucharist. The arrival of the Papal 
Legate, accompanied by the General of the Jesuits, 
broke up the conference; but, in spite of their remon- 
strances, the queen, hoping to rule by fomenting the 
division, issued an edict for the protection of the Pro- 
testants. This truce the duke of Guise violated by the 
barbarous massacre of Yassy, whereupon the Protestants 
flew to arms, and the kingdom was desolated with the 
horrors of civil war. The expedient of marrying the 
protestant heir to the king's sister, was frustrated by 
the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew, when the 
queen-mother threw off the veil she had worn for her 
own purposes, and cast a yet deeper gloom over the 
dark spirit of her short-lived son. This horrible crime, 
which put the English court in mourning, and has never 
ceased to receive the severest censure, even of Eoman 
Catholic historians, was welcomed with fiendish rejoicing 
at the Papal court. A medal was actually struck to 
commemorate the cowardly triumph, and the name 
and effigies of Gregory xiii. are consigned to perpetual 
infamy, by appearing on its obverse. 



CONSPIRACIES IN ENGLAND. 



395 



The next king, finding himself compelled against 
his will to proscribe his protestant subjects, took his re- 
venge in the assassination of Guise, and his brother the 
cardinal of Lorraine. Forthwith the pope thundered 
out an anathema, which was promptly enforced by the 
knife of a Jacobin monk. 1 Large sums of money were 
next sent from Eome, and the powers of Spain and 
Savoy were invoked against a protestant succession. 
Henry iv. was brought to sacrifice his religion to his 
throne, and the edict of Nantes (a.d. 1598), while 
securing an unprecedented toleration to the Huguenots, 
still proclaimed the ascendancy of the papacy. Never- 
theless, this king fell, like his predecessor, by the hand 
of an assassin who thought that to oppose the pope was 
to fight against God. 2 

Our own country was that in which the pope most 
conspicuously showed his contempt for the ordinance of 
God. It was Eome who first taught the English to 
conspire and rebel in the name of religion. The ac- 
cession of Mary was loyally acquiesced in by the 
Protestants, and all the persecutions of her bloody reign 
provoked no insurrection. The national unity was 
maintained also for several years after the accession of 
Elizabeth, the people still attending the parish churches, 
and only an insignificant number of the clergy refusing 
to conform. 3 It was the pope who encouraged the 
Scottish queen to assume the arms of England, and filled 

1 The king was assassinated at St. Cloud, by a monk named Jacques 
Clement, 1st Aug. 1589, and, having no issue, the house of Valois expired 
with him. 

2 Henry iv. was stabbed in his carriage, in the streets of Paris, by 
Francis Ravaillac, 14th May, 1610. Two previous attempts, punished 
with death, could not deter this enthusiast of the papacy from daring 
the same penalty. 

3 Out of 9400 clergy in England, only 150 refused the oath of 
supremacy to Elizabeth. The bishops, having been all intruded by Mary, 
rejected it in a body. 



396 THE PAPAL REACTION. 

the realm with secret conspirators. 1 No sooner were the 
Guises successful in France than Pius v. renewed the 
excommunication and deposition of Elizabeth, offering 
to shed his own blood in an invasion of her dominions. 
This was followed by the first risings in the north 
(a.d. 1570). 

Gregory xin. abetted several rebellions in Ireland, 
where the population adhered more largely to the 
papacy. 2 In 1579 he established an English College at 
Borne, under the care of the Jesuits, for the purpose of 
rearing missionaries to their native land, and from that 
time the " Seminarists " and Jesuits were constantly 
plotting treason against the crown. The bulls against 
the queen were diligently circulated by the Jesuits 
Parsons and Campion, who had formerly held office as 
protestants in the University of Oxford. Coming over 
from Eome in disguise (a.d. 1580), they issued tracts, by 
means of concealed printing presses, to dissuade the 
people from attending the established worship. This 
occasioned severe laws to be passed against the agents 
of popery, whose views of religion inevitably entangled 
them in high treason. The queen was menaced by 
machinations abroad and by threats of assassination at 
home. Her maids of honour were exhorted to treat her 
as Judith treated Holof ernes. The Spanish ambassador 

1 The pretence was that Elizabeth was deposed by the bulls of Paul 
nr. and Paul rv. The recusant English priests established a seminary at 
Douai under W. Allen in 1568, and a branch of this establishment at 
Eheims enjoyed the protection of the archbishop, Cardinal Guise. It was 
the papacy which exiled these men, by compelling them to place their 
religion in treason against their own sovereign. 

2 One of these was plotted at Rome by an English adventurer named 
Thomas Stukely, whom the pope advanced to the peerage by the title of 
marquis of Leinster, and despatched with an expedition and a large 
sum of money to join the Irish under the earl of Desmond. Stukely, 
however, choosing to lend his troops by the way to king Sebastian in an 
expedition against the Moors, met his death in that adventure. 



THE SPANISH ARMADA. 



397 



was detected in a correspondence to raise soldiers in 
England, in aid of the expected invasion. Mary, now 
a fugitive from Scotland, was the object, if not the 
accomplice, of all these conspiracies ; hence the strong 
feeling in England against that unhappy queen. Her 
death was loudly demanded after the massacre of St. 
Bartholomew, and when in 1585 the increasing peril 
to the crown occasioned an Act of Parliament to banish 
all Jesuits and Seminarists on pain of treason, it was 
followed the next year by the trial and execution of 
Mary. 1 

This decisive measure exploded the mine. Sixtus v., 
raging in indecent invective against the English J ezebel, 
created Allen a cardinal by way of defiance. He further 
concluded a treaty with Philip of Spain, which resulted in 
the memorable Armada. It arrived, however, too late : 
in the midst of treachery the heart of the country was 
sound : the queen extorted the admiration of the pope 
himself, and the gallant Howard, taking command of her 
fleet, taught the court of Eome that an English noble- 
man could prefer his country and his honour to the 
dictates of a foreign prelate. 

Similar scenes were enacted in other countries. Eor 
a hundred years after the Council of Trent, Europe was 
deluged with blood by the persistent struggle of the 
Eoman See to re-establish its ascendancy. So far from 
fulfilling the idea of a Christian power controlling the 
kingdoms of the earth by the majesty of religion, the 
papacy has been the cause of more wars than Mahom- 
medanism itself. In the four centuries of its existence 

1 Edwin Sandys, bishop of London, wrote to Lord Burghley, September, 
1572 : — " The safetie of our Quene and Realme yf God wil furtwith to 
cutte of the Scotish Quene's heade this sentiment, though as barbarous 
as the episcopal orthography, was but too generally shared in the heat 
and indignation of the time. 



398 



THE PAPAL REACTION. 



it has never once left the world at peace. Every 
difference of opinion is heresy, and every attempt at 
reform impiety. When she has the power, Eome in- 
variably delivers all opponents to the sword or the 
stake. To retain or acquire this power she is ready, at 
any moment, to array believers in Christ against each 
other, or to ally them with infidels, in the battle field. 
When the world turns a deaf ear to her pretensions, and 
her power is weak, she conspires in secret; when the 
artifices of this world are insufficient, she audaciously 
usurps the terrors of the next. The Gospel and the 
Church to her are swallowed up in the one text — " Thou 
art Peter," — meaning (if we can believe it) that God 
has created heaven and earth, the human race, and the 
angelic host, to be ruled at the pleasure of an Italian 
bishop ! While these pretensions were listened to, 
Europe was always at war. In proportion as the world 
gets tired of them, peace becomes more and more 
attainable ; and when they shall be finally exploded, 
Christian unity and international concord will at last 
become possible. 



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CHAPTEE XV. 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 

Personal Character of the Popes — Persecution — Thirst for Blood — 
Massacre of St. Bartholomew — Improvements at Rome — Protestant 
Power — Papal Claims — Political Insignificance — Decay of Temporal 
Power — European Wars — Protestant Triumphs — Peace of Westphalia 
— State of the Temporal Power — Nepotism at Rome — Rise of Papal 
Families — Jesuits and Jansenists — Jansen Condemned — Resistance 
of Roman Catholic States — The Church of France — English Revo- 
lution — Spanish Succession — Re-arrangement of Italy — The Pro- 
testant Pope — Expulsion of the Jesuits from Portugal, Spain, and 
France — Suppression of the Order — Humiliation of the Papacy — 
Abolition of the Inquisition — French Revolution — Execution of 
Louis xvi. — General War — Fall of the Roman Catholic Powers — 
Napoleon Bonaparte — Italian Republics — Seizure of Rome — Abolition 
of the Temporal Power — Pope carried into Exile — Extinction of the 
Papacy. 

One unmistakeable blessing resulted to the Church of 
Eome from the counteraction provoked in herself by the 
Protestant Beformation : the papal throne was neyer 
again invaded by the irreligious characters that so often 
polluted it before. Not only were there no more such 
monsters as Innocent vm., Alexander vi., and Julius n., 
but even another Leo x. was become impossible. 
Paul iv. brought in a line of pontiffs distinguished 
always by the semblance, and very often the reality, of 
personal piety. If Pius iv. showed no decided proofs of 
spiritual religion, he was free from moral stain, humble, 
easy of access, and sincerely desirous of doing good. 
He did his best to reform the Eoman court, and oblige 

2 D 



402 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 

the bishops to reside in their dioceses and attend to their 
duties : his great superiority to the episcopal average 
of the times was the cause of his being canonised after 
death. His piety was of that kind on which the Eoman 
Church sets the highest store. A Dominican monk at 
fourteen, he was one of the few who preserved their 
monastic vows inviolate through life. When pope he 
fasted with all the rigour of the convent, attended mass 
daily, and rose with the dawn to perform his spiritual 
exercises free from the interruptions of public business. 
Sincerity and devotion beamed in his face 3 as he walked 
barefoot and bareheaded in the processions, with his 
long white beard falling on his breast. In private life 
he was simple and unaffected, kind and bountiful to his 
dependants, full of meekness and charity. 

Still even he was, all his life long, a cruel, re- 
morseless persecutor of every religious difference. He 
filled the post of grand inquisitor under Paul iv., and 
in his own pontificate that gloomy tribunal revelled 
in unrestrained authority. Even a brother inquisitor 
was not safe from its fangs. Bartholomew Carranza 
was one of the theologians and preachers at the council 
of Trent : Queen Mary of England chose him for her 
confessor : her husband raised him to the archbishopric 
of Toledo : he was summoned to attend the last hours 
of Charles v. The suppression of heresy was the chief 
object of his life, and he boasted of having dug up the 
bodies of many heretics, and burned them. Yet this 
eminent prelate — the primate of Spain — for some ex- 
pressions favouring the doctrine of justification by faith, 
was thrown into the dungeons of the inquisition, and 
all his property confiscated. On the accession of Pius 
he appealed to the Holy See, and was removed to 
Eome. There he was subjected to the most rigorous 
treatment till the end of the pontificate, and finally only 



CHAEACTER OF THE POPES. 



403 



escaped the stake by abjuring, to die in his convent a 
few months after, at seventy- two years of age. 

When such was the treatment of his own prelates 
we are less surprised at this pope's sanguinary designs 
upon Protestant England. Still it is startling to read 
that he sent the consecrated hat and sword to Alva, in 
commendation of his bloody career in the Netherlands ; 
and that in France he not only assisted Charles ix. with 
troops to make war upon his subjects, but gave express 
orders to the papal commander to allow no quarter to 
protestants. " Take no Huguenot prisoners ; kill every 
one on the spot that falls into your hands this was how 
St. Peter's successor read the injunction " Feed my 
lambs !" What more terrible proof of the Satanic 
delusion that blinded all eyes at Eome, than that such 
sentiments could find place in the bosom of a Christian 
bishop ! History places the glory of his pontificate in 
the victory over the Turks at Lepanto ; but to the pope 
the slaughter of his fellow- Christians seems to have 
occasioned hardly less rejoicing. 

Gregory xin. though less strict by inclination, was 
constrained by the force of public opinion at Eome, 
under the influence of the Jesuits, to follow in the steps 
of his predecessor. He attended carefully to his duties, 
subscribed liberally to schools for the young (of course 
under Jesuit direction), and signalised himself by the long 
desired reform of the calendar — an advantage in which 
the protestant nations did not participate 1 for many years. 

1 It was not introduced into England till 1751, when the error of com- 
puting the year at exactly 365| days, and so adding a bissextile every 
fourth year, amounted to eleven days. It was therefore enacted, that the 
day after the 2nd September should be accounted the 14th, and that in 
future the bissextile should be omitted in the secular year {i.e., the year 
completing the century), with the exception of the fourth century ; — Act 
24 Geo. in., c. 23. By the same act, the legal commencement of the year 
was changed from the 25th March to the 1st January. 

2 d 2 



404 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 

Yet even this enlightened and good-natured pope could 
order rejoicings for the atrocious massacre of St. Bar- 
tholomew. 

Sixtus v. was one of the most trusted cardinals 
of Pius v. — learned, prudent, and, after the Eomish 
fashion, devout. Having risen from a condition of ab- 
solute pauperism, when he kept swine, with a crust of 
bread and the spring water for his single meal, he adopted 
for his motto, " Thou, O God, hast been my defender 
even from my mother's womb." He, too, was a persecutor 
like the rest, and active against Carranza ; when pope, 
his severity rendered him the best prince that Eome 
had long known. His stern suppression of the banditti 
who infested the papal states, his financial improvements, 
and his statesmanlike administration of the government, 
have caused him to be regarded almost as the founder 
of the Eoman constitution. Under his protecting care 
the city resumed an aspect worthy of the metropolis of 
the world. 

In the middle of the fifteenth century the Seven 
hills were desolated, and the plain along the Tiber was 
the only inhabited part. Eome was a city of herdsmen, 
the cattle strayed in the narrow streets, as in the Italian 
villages. The very memory of its antiquities was lost : 
they called the capitol Goats' hill, and the forum the 
Cows' field. St. Peter's was in danger of falling. 1 The 
jubilee of 1450, when the unity of the Church was 
restored, supplied funds for commencing a re-edification. 
The bridge of Sixtus iv. had improved the communi- 
cation between the two sides of the river ; Julius n. 
restored the Vatican palace ; the cardinals and barons 
emulated his example ; and the city attained to great 
magnificence under Leo x. Then came the sack of 



Ranke. 



IMPROVEMENTS AT ROME. 



405 



Bourbon with the pestilence and troubles under Paul 
iv. which caused a sad decline. Sixtus v. was the author 
of the great aqueduct along the hills, two-and-twenty 
miles in length, which he called from his own baptismal 
name the Acqua Felice. Buildings followed these im- 
mediately, and the whole city felt the pontiff's active 
hand. • It was he- who moved the obelisk from the 
sacristy of old St. Peter's to its present situation in 
front of the church. 1 He added the cupola to the 
Church, and being told that it would require ten 
years in building, Sixtus (who always wished to see 
the fruit of his work) put on six hundred men to 
labour day and night, and finished it in twenty-two 
months. His dealing with the antiquities was equally 
peremptory and alarming : he proposed to clear away 
the " ugly " monuments and " restore " the others ? 
Among the former was the tomb of Csecilia Metella ! 
it was with great difficulty that the cardinals and nobles 
saved this sole remnant of the republic from destruction ! 
Before all things his restorations were to be Christian. 
He banished the statues of Jupiter and Apollo from the 
Capitol, and turned Minerva into Christian Eome by 
giving her a cross instead of the spear. The pillars of 
Trajan and Antonine he dedicated to the apostles Peter 
and Paul, placing their figures on the top, and removing 
the urn which was said to contain Trajan's ashes. Even 
the obelisk in the Vatican was surmounted by a cross, 
containing a piece of the Holy Wood. The erection 
of the obelisks before the churches of St. John Lateran, 
St. Mary Maggiore, and St. Mary del Popolo ; the Lateran 
palace, the Yatican library, and the hospital for aged 

1 A mass of stone, weighing above a million of Roman pounds, was 
raised from its base by thirty-five windlasses, worked by seventy horses 
and 350 men, then lowered upon rollers and re-erected on its present site 
without mischance (a.d. 1586). 



406 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 

and infirm near the Ponte Sisto, were also among the 
works of this indefatigable pontiff. 

Labonrs of this kind, added to the personal respect- 
ability and learning of the popes of this age, greatly 
augmented their influence in the struggles that were 
now made, from political no less than religious motives, 
to re-establish the authority of the Eoman Church. 
The papacy, however, could never recover from the 
wound inflicted by the Eeformation. The Protestant 
States, instead of suffering from their revolt, rose to be 
the leading powers of Europe. The pope himself was 
compelled to defer to them, and it was hardly to be 
expected that the sovereigns who remained in his 
communion, would be content with less than others 
had taken by the strong hand. They no longer trembled 
before the transcendental prerogatives of Eome ; the 
bolts, which used to leap so fiercely out of the armoury 
of the Yatican, were restrained by the fear of provoking 
ridicule, or resentment, rather than awe. 

Not that Eome abated anything of its pretensions ; 
on the contrary, it was just when the papacy was losing 
its grasp of universal empire, and settling down into 
one of the petty principalities of Italy, that its sovereign 
claims were put forward more distinctly than ever. 
Cardinal Eellarmine, the greatest of Jesuit writers, the 
friend of nine popes, and the champion of their church 
against our royal theologian, James i., asserted the Divine 
authority of the pope and the clergy in the most absolute 
terms. The supreme pontiff (he says) is simply and 
absolutely over the Universal Church, above a General 
Council, and responsible to no earthly tribunal. 1 He is 
the absolute sovereign of the Christian priesthood 
throughout the world; the clergy are bound to obey 



1 De Cone, auctoritate, xvii. 



H1LDBBRANDINE DOCTRINES. 



407 



him by Divine command, and that not only in spiritual, 
but in temporal, matters ; insomuch that it is impossible 
for them to acknowledge any temporal sovereign, since 
no man can serve two masters. The prince is the sheep, 
and spiritual son, of the pope, but no priest is either son 
or sheep to a prince : consequently the priest may judge 
the emperor, but for the emperor to judge the priest 
is as absurd as for the sheep to guide the shepherd. 1 If 
Eellarmine did not, in express terms, claim all temporal 
power for the pope, on the same Divine authority (an 
omission which was greatly resented by Sixtus v.), he 
arrived at the same point, by maintaining that the 
temporal power is bound to obey the spiritual, as the 
body obeys the soul. The spiritual power is the 
ordinance of God ; the temporal power is the ordinance 
of man. 2 Temporal governments exist only by the will 
of the people: the people originate, resume, and 
alter them at pleasure, but the pontifical chair is 
the visible seat of God, whom all men are bound to 
obey. 3 

Baronius, the confessor of Gregory xiii., created 
a cardinal by Clement viii., and within an ace of 
being pope at his death, re-wrote the annals of the 
church, falsifying documents, history, and chronology, 
in order to impress the whole with the pontifical stamp. 
Suarez and Mariana, Jesuit writers of the first reputa- 
tion, sought to sustain the papal throne by the most 
extravagant assertions of popular rights. Mariana went 
so far as to justify the assassination, as well as the 
dethronement, of temporal princes. He avowed that 
Jacques Clement had learned from his spiritual advisers 

1 De clericis, i. 30. 

2 This is just the reverse to the doctrine of Peter and Paul, 1 Pet. ii. 13 
— Rom. xiii. 1. 

3 De Rom. Pont., v., vi. 



408 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 

the lawfulness of slaying a tyrant; and openly com- 
mended him for the glorious exploit. 1 

Hildebrand himself never put forth greater claims, 
nor sustained them on such lofty authority. But the 
world had grown wiser since the Protestant Keformation, 
and the J esuits found powerful opponents even within 
the bosom of the Latin Church. Monarchs, who valued 
the church as an instrument in political government, were 
disgusted to be told that the pontifical power exceeded 
the regal. Philip of Spain was the first to abridge the 
immunities of these ecclesiastical democrats. In France, 
where the Sorbonne maintained the Apostolical doctrine 
of non-resistance, the Jesuits fell into such odium that 
they were expelled the kingdom in the year 1766. A 
similar result was effected at Venice by the able 
arguments of Paolo Sarpi. In vain the Eoman court 
strove to enforce its reactionary doctrine. Even the 
most friendly powers took their own course on political 
questions, and, instead of ruling the councils of Europe, 
the Holy See was reduced to an abject dependence on 
the powers of France and Spain. Its freedom of action 
depended on fomenting the jealousies, or mediating in 
the wars, of these two kingdoms : and its chief anxiety 
was to prevent either from becoming supreme. 

As the Protestant States came to affect, and even- 
tually to control, the balance of power, the political 
influence of Eome dwindled and expired. Its decay is 
traceable through all the counteraction which repelled 
the first triumphs of Protestantism. Pius v. was a 
Hildebrand all over. He took upon himself to make 
Cosmo of Tuscany a Grand Duke without consulting 
the emperor, who refused to acknowledge the title. 
Besides excommunicating Queen Elizabeth, and giving 

1 Franc. Suarez, De fid. cathol., iii. Mariana, De Eege. 



DECAY OF THE TEMPORAL POWER. 



409 



away her dominions, lie was the author of the famous 
bull In Ccena Domini, which repeats the most extra- 
vagant pretensions of Gregory vii. So changed, how- 
ever, were the times, that the vassal king of Naples 
refused to admit this bull into his dominions, and though 
the Eoman court has continued, to the present time, to 
read it every year on the day before Good Friday, the 
thunder, which once shook the thrones of Europe, 
has shrunk to the muttered curses of an impotent 
conclave. When Gregory xiii. laid claim to Portugal, 
on the fall of Sebastian without heirs, Philip of Spain 
would not so much as discuss his pretensions, but 
entering the kingdom by force, annexed it to his own 
dominions. 

Sixtus v., who was a firm and jealous prince himself, 
felt the incongruity of these anti-monarchial pretensions, 
and had the greatest dislike to the Jesuits in conse- 
quence. He looked with equal displeasure on the aris- 
tocratical rebels of the French League, and the spiritual 
democracy of the bull In Ccena Domini. His maxim 
was that the Holy See ought to uphold the prerogatives 
of monarchs ; still the pope clung to the superior mon- 
archy of Eome, and his great object in embellishing 
the city was to make it once more the capital of the 
civilised world. In alliance with Spain he intended, 
after conquering England, to subjugate France. Tuscany 
was to be appropriated single handed. He talked 'of 
wresting Egypt from the Turks, and re-opening the 
canal to the Eed Sea. In his own idea, he wielded the 
thunders of omnipotence; the murder of the French 
king was a Divine ratification of the pope's anathema. 
Yet this ambitious pontiff met with nothing but defeat. 
Braved by Venice, in the recognition of Henry iv., he 
was threatened by Spain with instant revolt, if he lent 
any countenance to her Protestant adversary. The pope 



410 DECLINE AXD FALL OF THE PAPACY. 

was clearly no longer the arbiter of kingdoms : by good 
management he might still retain the primacy of the 
Latin Church, bnt his temporal power was reduced to 
the sovereignty of the Papal States, and even in that he 
was made to feel the growth of an international policy, 
adverse to all his traditions. 

Clement vin., after augmenting the possessions of 
the See by the resumption of the duchy of Ferrara, on 
the extinction of the Delia Eovere family (a.d. 1597), 
was able to emancipate the pontificate from the ascend- 
ancy, which Spain had retained in its councils since the 
sack of Eome. His inclinations were towards the 
French, whom Baronius, to the infinite disgust of the 
Spaniards, proclaimed to be the truest benefactors, in all 
ages, of the Eoman See. In spite of the remonstrances 
of Spain, and of the expulsion of the Jesuits from 
France, the pope absolved Henry iv. at Eome, 17th 
December 1595, and the Eldest Son of the Church 
returned to his place in the Latin communion. The 
apostate king purchased the favour by re-introducing 
popery into Beam: he afterwards consented (1603) to 
restore the Jesuits, as a kind of counterpoise to the 
Edict of Nantes : still the Gallican Church maintained 
an attitude of independence, which has only in our own 
days been exchanged for Ultramontanism. 

Paul v. revived all the most extravagant conceptions 
of^pontifical power. He permitted himself to be styled 
Vice-God upon earth, and monarch of Christendom. Yet 
the Venetian republic braved his hottest anger rather 
than surrender the rule of its own territories. Paul 
was amazed at their audacity ; and all the old spiritual 
artillery was opened on the rebels. The doge was ex- 
communicated, the churches were laid under an interdict, 
and the clergy were commanded to publish the anathema. 
The republic calmly ordered them to proceed in their 



> 



EUROPEAN WARS. 



411 



accustomed duties, and all but the Jesuits and a few 
monks obeyed. The recusants were instantaneously 
banished, and their places supplied by other priests. 
The pope began to arm his troops for an invasion, but, 
afraid of Protestant intervention, he submitted to French 
mediation, and granted a private absolution, the Vene- 
tians refusing to solicit, or even to receive it, in public : 
the Jesuits remained expelled. 

A significant intimation of the decline of the papacy 
was given by the parliament of Paris in 1606, when 
they ordered Suarez's book, on the pope's power of 
deposing princes, to be burned by the common exe- 
cutioner, in spite of the pontifical imprimatur. The 
Hildebrandine doctrine was universally rejected, and 
the Jesuits were everywhere chastised by the govern- 
ments for promulgating it. 

Still, the pope could incite to a large amount of 
bloodshed, by taking advantage of the ambition or 
animosities of rival princes. Some of them heartily 
shared his intolerance. The young archduke Ferdinand 
of Austria, being told on his accession that only three 
papists were to be found in his capital, took a vow to 
restore the Eoman creed, even at the cost of civil war. 
When elected emperor, he headed a catholic league, 
which utterly routed the protestants at the battle of 
Prague (a.d. 1620). The duke of Bavaria seized the 
palatine electorate, the pope obtaining the Heidelberg 
library as his share of the spoil. In Bohemia the 
measures adopted by the emperor drove 30,000 pro- 
testant artisans, and 200 of the nobility, into foreign 
lands ; but they succeeded in subjugating that kingdom, 
with Hungary and Austria, to the Eoman creed. In 
these terrible persecutions the pope vigorously co- 
operated both by anathemas and subsidies. 

The next year witnessed the capture of the Grisons 



412 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 



by the Austrians and Spaniards, who laid the protestant 
villages waste with fire and sword. Paul urged the 
prosecution of similar measures in the Netherlands, but 
he was struck with apoplexy, while rejoicing over the 
victory of Prague, and did not live to witness the fruits of 
his bloody counsels. The thirty years' war followed, in 
which the sacred name of religion was strangely mixed up 
with the succession to the kingdoms of the earth earthy. 

Gregory xv. showed his delight at the successes of 
the Church, by canonising Ignatius and Xavier in grati- 
tude to the Jesuits. He further doubled the subsidy 
to the emperor, suppressed the communion of the cup in 
Bohemia, and caused the mass to be celebrated in Latin, 
according to the Eoman ritual, in every church of that 
afflicted kingdom. In a more enlightened hour he 
founded a congregation of the Propaganda at Eome to 
extend the creed of his church to distant lands. 1 
Gregory enjoyed great personal consideration with the 
Roman Catholic powers. Entering with much interest 
on the project of uniting the prince of Wales to the 
Spanish Infanta, he expressed his hope " that the ancient 

1 Gregory's " Congregation" was enlarged, by the addition of a College 
or Seminary for the education of missionaries, under Urban vin., who en- 
dowed it with large possessions ; and from this establishment proceeded 
legions of ardent missionaries to America and the East. The Dominicans, 
Franciscans, and Capuchins, all co-operated in the work, but the greatest, 
and most questionable, successes were achieved by the Jesuits, who in 
China, Abyssinia, Japan, and India, dishonoured the name of Christ by 
associating it with some of the most corrupt usages of their idolatrous 
converts, both in morals and worship. They resorted to every artifice to 
conceal the truth from their superiors at Rome, treating the orders of 
the Congregation, and of the pope himself, with profound contempt. Of 
this order was Robert de' Nobili, who gave himself out for a Brahman at 
Madura, and even swore before an Assembly of Brahmans to his own 
descent from Brahma. — See tlie authorities quoted by Mosheim and Machine 
{Eccl. Hist., cent. xvii. sect, i.) The French Jesuit, Martin, was hardly 
less scrupulous in his compliances with idolatry. — See Lettres Edifiantes et 
Curieuses quoted in the present author's India, its Natives and Missions, 
p. 291. 



PROTESTANT TRIUMPHS, 



413 



seed of Christian piety, which had of old borne fruit in 
English kings, would once more spring np and flourish 
in him." 1 James i. actually swore to marriage articles, 
which stipulated for the education of the children by the 
mother, and the repeal of all laws in England against 
papists. He contracted similar engagements when, on 
the rupture of the Spanish match, a Erench princess 
was selected for the future queen of England. It was 
this which sowed the seeds of the not unreasonable 
suspicions, which eventually brought his son to the 
scaffold, and drove his family from the throne. 

The refusal of the English to fulfil obligations, which 
the crown had no power to contract, was urged on the 
French by pope Urban as ample cause of war, and 
having engaged Spain in the same quarrel, he proposed 
an invasion of England, which it was hoped would 
finally destroy the most formidable bulwark of the 
Reformation. The design was defeated by the English 
invading France in the cause of the Huguenots. The 
right arm of the conspiracy was at once paralysed, and 
but for the mismanagement of Buckingham, and the 
cabinet of St. James's, the prospects of protestantism 
might have materially brightened throughout Europe. 

The pope's next exploit was to sow dissension be- 
tween his best allies. Taking alarm at the growth of 
the imperial power in Italy, he fortified the Vatican, and 
invoked the protection of the French. Louis xin. 
marching to his assistance, was met by the imperial 

1 The highest expectations were cherished at Rome of the son of the 
" martyred " Scottish queen. Clement VHI. sent word to James, before he 
came to the English throne, that he prayed for the son of so virtuous a 
mother, and hoped to see him a Catholic. His accession was celebrated 
in Rome with solemn services and processions. — Ranke, vii. 2, 7. These 
statements go far to acquit the Court of Rome of any complicity in the 
gunpowder plot. Garnet never was the superior of the English Jesuits, 
and Digby repudiated any other motive but u zeal for God's religion." 



414 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 



forces under Wallenstein, whose successes obliged Urban 
to have recourse to intrigues in the diet, which pro- 
cured the recall of the dreaded commander. The pro- 
testants then inviting the aid of Gustavus Adolphus, 
king of Sweden, the pope deserted the emperor, and 
in these political divisions threw away the cause of his 
church. 

The long struggle was closed by the peace of West- 
phalia (1648), which gave enormous advantages to the 
protestants. Sweden retained a large part of her con- 
quests from the empire. Switzerland and Holland were 
recognised as independent republics ; the elector palatine 
was restored, the peace of Augsburg was renewed, and 
the creation of an eighth electorate at Hanover gave 
the protestants the long-wished-for equality of voices in 
the diet. 

These arrangements replaced the ecclesiastical affairs 
of Germany on the footing of the year 1624. Being 
carried out in defiance of the pope's remonstrances, it 
was manifest that the European powers were at last tired 
of wasting their resources, and the lives of their subjects, 
in ecclesiastical differences. The political advantages 
of the several States were the only objects now regarded ; 
in stipulating that the provisions should be carried 
out, " without regard to the opposition of any personage, 
spiritual or temporal," the treaty of Osnabriick ex- 
cluded the papal pretensions from the councils of 
Europe. From that time Eome ceased to have any 
voice in the political world. The Holy See remained 
the ultimate authority in the Latin Church on ecclesias- 
tical questions ; but even so its action was circum- 
scribed by concordats, and the temporal governments 
everywhere succeeded in reducing the Church, more 
or less, under the control of the State. 

The temporal power of the pope shrank to the govern- 



NEPOTISM AT ROME. 



415 



ment of his own dominions. A valuable addition arose 
from the escheat of TJrbino which lapsed, to the deep 
regret of its inhabitants, by the death of Alfonso II., the 
last of the Estes. Urban' s attempt on Parma, however, 
was not successful : the duke Odoardo Farnese was re- 
inforced by the neighbouring princes, and after spending 
twenty millions of crowns in the war, and narrowly 
escaping a hostile occupation of Eome, the pope was de- 
feated on every point. This mortification so touched his 
vanity that he swooned as he signed the treaty, and died 
imploring vengeance on the impious princes who had 
forced their spiritual pastor into war. 

From the time of the complete constitution of the 
Papal States, through the lapse of Ferrara and the 
escheat of TJrbino, the families of the respective popes 
aspired more and more to the character of an hereditary 
aristocracy. They not only filled the principal posts 
under the government of their reigning chief, but 
by securing lands and permanent possessions out of the 
church revenues, were enabled to play the part of 
the nobility under their successors. The popes could 
no longer confer principalities on their nephews or other 
nearer connections, but being bound by no vow of 
poverty they regarded the entire revenues of the See 
as their personal property, and bestowed the surplus, 
after providing for their armies and subsidies, the public 
buildings, and the administration of the government, at 
their own discretion. Had these expenses, indeed, been 
honestly defrayed from the current revenue, little would 
have remained to the privy purse ; but the popes, like 
other princes, found it necessary to supplement the taxes 
by frequent loans, and being subject to no check, but 
that of conscience, in separating the public from the 
personal income, it happened that the government debt 
was constantly increasing, while the private exchequer 



416 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 

could always overflow upon the kindred of the reigning 
pontiff. 

Sixtus v. invented a system of nepotism which was so 
actively followed up by his successors, that even a short 
reign provided the means of accumulating a brilliant 
fortune. 1 That pontiff raised one nephew to the rank of 
cardinal, with a share of the public business and an 
ecclesiastical income of a hundred thousand crowns. 
Another he created a marquess, with large estates in 
the Neapolitan territory. The house of Ferretti thus 
founded, long maintained a high position, and was fre- 
quently represented in the College of Cardinals. The 
Aldobrandini, founded in like manner by Clement viii., 
the Borghesi by Paul v., the Ludovisi by Gregory xv., 
and the Barberini by Urban viii., now vied in rank and 
opulence with the ancient Poman houses of Colonna and 
Orsini, who boasted that for centuries no peace had 
been concluded in Christendom in which they were not 
expressly included. 

On the death of Urban viii. (29th July 1644) the 
Barberinis commanded the votes of eight-and-forty 
cardinals, the most powerful faction ever seen in the 
conclave. Still, the other papal families were able to 
resist their dictation, and the struggle terminated in the 
election of Cardinal Pamfili, who took the name of 
Innocent x. During the interval of three months, the 
city was abandoned to complete lawlessness ; assassi- 
nations in the streets were frequent ; no private house 
was safe without a military guard, and a whole army 
of soldiers found occupation in protecting the property 
of their employers. This was then the usual state of 
things during an interregnum. 

• Innocent x., though seventy-two years of age at his 



1 Ranke, book viii., sec. 3. 



INNOCENT X. 



417 



election, was fall of energy. He restrained the disorders 
in the city, compelled the barons to pay their debts, and 
even enforced this unwelcome obligation on the Duke of 
Parma, by the seizure and destruction of Castro, which 
Urban had been compelled to relinquish. Innocent 
brought the Barberini to strict account for malpractices 
under his predecessor, and wrested from them large 
portions of their ill-gotten gain. So far, however, from 
reforming the system out of which these abuses sprung, 
his nepotism exhibited itself in a form which scandalised 
even the Eoman courtiers. The pope brought his sister- 
in-law, Donna Olimpia Maidalchina, from Yiterbo to 
Eome, and established her in a palace, where she received 
the first visits of foreign ambassadors on their arrival, 
gave magnificent entertainments, and dispensed for her 
own benefit the public offices of the government. The 
cardinals had her portrait hanging in their rooms, like 
that of a sovereign. Her daughters were married into 
the noblest families. Her son, having first been appointed 
the cardinal-nephew, soon after renounced his orders, 
married, and became the secular-nephew. The struggle 
for power between his mother and his wife divided Eome 
into new factions, and the feud was enlarged by the 
ambition of a more distant kinsman, whom Innocent 
appointed to the vacant post of cardinal-nephew. The 
pontiff sank under a deep cloud from the disorders in his 
family and the palace, and when he died (5th January, 
1655) the corpse lay three days uncared for, till an old 
canon, who had been long dismissed from his household, 
expended half-a-crown on its interment. The successor 
of St. Peter must have sunk low in official as well as 
personal repute when such contempt could be possible, 
Fabio Chigi, who came next as Alexander viii., 
brought to the tottering chair a spotless reputation, and 
abilities long proved in the service of the church. His 

2 E 



418 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 



first act was to banish the scandalous widow ; her son 
was allowed to retain her palace and fortune. Be- 
ginning with the loudest protestations against nepotism, 
now the best established institution at Borne, in the 
phrase of the time, the pope soon " became a man." 
The courtiers remonstrated on his leaving his family to 
live a plain citizens' life at Siena : it might involve the 
Holy See in a misunderstanding with Tuscany. The 
rector of the J esuits' college went farther : he declared 
the pope was bound, under pain of mortal sin, to place 
his nephew in high office, because the foreign am- 
bassadors would confide in no one else. The question 
was gravely proposed in consistory, and the flood-gates 
being there authoritatively unclosed, the waters of pre- 
ferment flowed abundantly on all who had the merit to 
be allied with Fabio Chigi. 1 

After discharging this arduous duty, the pope re- 
lieved himself of further attention to business, and spent 
his days in literary leisure. His nephews, however, had 
less power than formerly, from the growth of the con- 
stitutional principle. The cardinals, in their different 
congregations, with the official secretaries, aspired to 
the functions of responsible advisers. The infallibility 
of the pope was confined, they said, to spiritual things ; 
in affairs of state he was to be guided by his council, like 

1 Ranke, viii. 6. None of the papal advisers seem to have hit on the 
view of a modern Protestant dignitary, who tells us that a prelate " is in 
duty bound to prefer those whom God by His providence brings nearest to 
him" and that those who violate this rule are selfish persons ; they 
sacrifice duty for the sake of a popularity which they do not win. The 
author, of course, inserts the proviso required by decency, "provided 
they be worthy of the patronage;" but a worth as yet untried, and of 
which the patron is the sole judge, must weigh but little in the scale of 
natural affection, when sanctioned by " Divine Providence " itself. Surely, 
it is begging the question to assume that kinsmanship is the index of God's 
will in the matter of preferment. Why not rather the respective labours 
and merits of the several candidates? 



THE JESUITS AND THE JANSENISTS. 



419 



other princes. Thus, a question involving the salvation 
of souls, would be left to the sole pleasure of the pontiff : 
but to levy a bajocco on the mutton and vegetables 
passing the gates of Kome, required the deliberate advice 
of the cardinals. Truly a singular conclusion to be 
arrived at by the ministers of Him who said, a how much 
is a man better than a sheep I" 

Alexander was doomed to hear his infallibility ques- 
tioned in spirituals no less than temporals. Under the 
late pontificate he had taken an active part in the 
controversy between the Jesuits and the Jansenists ; 
this was but the continuance of a difference that had 
agitated the church ever since the Council of Trent 
laid down the doctrine of justification by works. The 
Dominicans, who were then overruled, complained loudly 
of the semi-pelagian consequences developed by Molina : 
they were seconded by all who revered the authority of 
Thomas Aquinas, The Jesuits, treating all arguments, 
and the saint himself, with contempt, proceeded to 
elaborate a system as pernicious to the morals, as their 
theology was to the faith of Christianity. They taught 
that mortal sin, being the wilful transgression of the 
law, is not incurred unless the agent not only knows 
the law and the character of the act, but intends at the 
moment to affront and defy the lawgiver. If he takes 
no thought or care about God whatever, but simply 
means to please himself at all hazards, the transgression 
is venial. Again, if a man swears outwardly, but with 
an inward mental reservation, he is not bound by his 
oath, for he did not swear, but jest. 1 To these repulsive 
maxims they added a doctrine of probability, which made 
it lawful to act against one's own conscience, as long 

1 Qui exterius tantum juravit, sine auimo jurandi, non obligatur. nisi 
forte ratione scandali, cuui non juraverit sed luserit."' — Busembaum, iii., 
tract, ii. 4, 8. Ranke, yiii. 11. 



420 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 



as there was a probability, or even a possibility, shown 
by the laxer opinions of others, of the thing not being 
forbidden. These doctrines, so dangerous in themselves, 
became still more alarming when avowed by a powerful 
Order, whose special aims were the direction of con- 
sciences, and the education of the yonng. The Holy 
See was appealed to, but two popes, Clement viii. and 
Paul v., presided over discussions by their famous theo- 
logians, without venturing on a decision. The truth 
was, that at the bottom of all lay the Tridentine view of 
justification, which they could not get rid of. 

The question assumed a new shape from the labours 
of Cornelius Jansen, bishop of Ypres in Flanders, and 
his college companion, Jean du Verger, abbot of St. 
Cyran in France. These men, from an unremitting 
study of the works of Augustine, had embraced convic- 
tions closely approaching to those now called " evan- 
gelical." They founded themselves, however, on the 
fathers rather than the Scriptures, admitted the claims 
of the Eoman Church, and proposed to revive primitive 
teaching without injury to any existing authority. 
Jansen sent his book to the pope from his death-bed, 
with a letter submitting all to the censure of the 
apostolic see : within an hour he expired, after receiving 
the last sacraments in the communion of the Church 
of Eome (1638). The Jesuits, whom Jansen had assailed 
with undisguised opposition, demanded the censure of 
the Holy See, and Urban's unbounded self-esteem in- 
duced him to pronounce a decision from which his pre- 
decessors had recoiled. 1 In Jansen' s " Augustinus " a 

1 It was this Urban viii. (Maffeo Barberini) who brought the aged 
Galileo, his own personal friend, to a second trial in 1633 (after Bellarmine 
had hushed up the scandal under Paul v.), and compelled the astronomer, 
after three days' imprisonment in the Inquisition, to recant his demonstra- 
tion of the earth's movement round the sun. 



BULL AGAINST JAN SEN. 



421 



passage was found attributing to the Eoman See a custom 
of occasionally condemning a doctrine for peace sake 
rather than from a conviction of its being false. The 
papal infallibility took umbrage, and Urban condemned 
the book as reviving exploded errors. The decree, how- 
ever, had little weight. The nuns of Port Eoyal, who 
had taken St. Cyran for their spiritual guide, continued 
the evangelical labours which had excited the wrath of 
the Jesuits and their friends, throughout France. Five 
propositions were now, therefore, extracted from Jansen's 
writings, and presented to the Holy See for special con- 
demnation. The Congregation to whom they were re- 
ferred was divided in its judgment. Cardinal Chigi 
belonged to the majority, who condemned the proposi- 
tions ; and being Secretary of State he presented the 
decree for Innocent's signature. The pope, who was 
no theologian, at first refused, but yielding to Chigi' s 
importunities, the bull was signed and published. 

The Jansenists denied that the propositions drawn 
up by their opponents at all represented the meaning of 
their great teacher. They subscribed to the condemna- 
tion of the five invidious articles set out in the bull, but 
declared their own opinions and practices wholly un- 
affected. This raised a new and momentous question. 
The pope was practically admitted to be infallible on 
matters of doctrine, but did his prerogative extend to 
matters of fact ? It was- his right to declare any number 
of given propositions heretical ; but could he decree that 
such propositions were contained in a certain book where 
they were not to be found ? could he fasten upon an 
author a sentiment which he himself rejected ? It may 
seem that, after swallowing the decree of transubstanti- 
ation, no Eoman Catholic could consistently object to 
the pope deciding the matter of fact, in common with 
the matter of faith : but the difference was real. The 



422 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 



infallibility rested on the doctrine of tradition, of which 
the See of Borne was supposed to be the incorruptible 
guardian : it applied to the truths revealed by Christ and 
His apostles, contained in Scripture, or handed down by 
oral tradition. In denning any particular dogma, the 
Holy See was supposed to promulgate the original truth 
which, though either imperfectly apprehended or in- 
sufficiently expressed by the early church, was still ever 
the intention of the Divine Eevealer. Now, that Jansen 
was the author of a certain work in the seventeenth 
century, or that certain propositions truly represented his 
sentiments, were statements which could never have 
made part of the original revelation, and could only be 
infallibly affirmed by a new one. Every one who could 
read Jansen was as well able to judge of his meaning as 
the pope. To invest him with the faculty of reading 
all men's thoughts, was to assert not an infallible tra- 
dition in the See, but the actual omniscience of the pope. 

This the Jansenists conceived to be monstrous, but, 
after wringing the censure from Innocent, Alexander 
would not permit it to be evaded by their distinctions. 
He issued a further bull (1657) declaring plainly and 
formally that the five propositions were contained in 
Jansen's book, and had been condemned in the sense 
intended by the author. The Jansenists replied that such 
declaration exceeded the power even of the supreme 
pontiff : the intention of Jansen was a matter of fact, not 
of faith, known only to God, and forming no part of His 
revelation to the Church. They allowed the five propo- 
sitions to be heretical, but contended that their condem- 
nation in no way touched the doctrines of Jansen, as 
taught by himself and propagated by his genuine dis- 
ciples. They suffered the bitterest persecution in France 
from the Crown and the Jesuits, but their constancy 
was invincible, and in 1668, Clement ix. admitted a 



PROTESTANTISM A POWER IN EUROPE. 423 

form of subscription which, in granting liberty of con- 
science to the Jansenists, reflected of necessity on the 
J esuits, and even on the papacy itself. 

The religious ardour of the sixteenth century, had so 
cooled down by the middle of the next, that the secular 
governments were not only averse to wage wars in 
defence of the papal creed, but began to perceive the 
political wisdom of tolerating differences which they had 
no power to eradicate. Protestantism became an element 
in the European system in spite of the pope, and with 
the recognition of this fact the great religious parties 
assumed their permanent limits. The court of Eome 
made the most determined exertions to retain its 
arbitrary jurisdiction, at least in ecclesiastical affairs. 
Urban viii. appointed a Congregation of Immunity to 
defend it, and the consequence was a constant series 
of altercations with the different governments. Spain, 
Naples, Austria, Venice, Genoa, Savoy, above all 
France, were continually receiving objurgations, and 
not unfrequently withdrew their ambassadors from 
Eome. Bichelieu, under whose long administration 
France attained the foremost place in Europe, though 
a cardinal and a controversialist, did not hesitate to 
ally himself with the Protestant powers against the 
confederacy of the pope with Spain and Austria. 
Louis xiv., while vigorously persecuting the Jansenists, 
took a malicious pleasure in mortifying the pope in his 
own capital. On pretence of an insult offered to his 
ambassador at Eome, he seized Avignon, and, sending 
troops into Italy, exacted an apology. The Grand 
Monarch further insisted on the pope's building a 
pyramid in Eome, with an inscription to perpetuate 
the memory of his humiliation. 

Louis asserted the rights of his crown at home, with a 
vigour which Eome was not prepared for. He claimed to 



421 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 

dispose of the episcopal patronage during the vacancy 
of a see, and to invest the new bishop. He forbade the 
introduction into France of any bulls to the contrary, 
and the bishops and clergy stood by their king. In 
1682 a National Council at Paris passed four resolutions 
affirming it to be the ancient doctrine of that church, 
1 . That neither St. Peter nor his successors have any au- 
thority in civil or temporal matters. 2. That the pope is 
subordinate to a General Council. 3. That the National 
Church of Prance ought to preserve its own customs. 
4. That the decisions of the pope are not to be accounted 
infallible till confirmed by the assent of the church. 
These propositions express a doctrine, which, however 
condemned at Eome, has prevailed with moderate and 
enlightened Eoman Catholics elsewhere. 

Innocent had the wisdom to abstain from extremi- 
ties : he censured the Gallican doctrine, but withheld 
the anathema, which might have driven France to 
follow the example of England. The " Great Monarch," 
however, was only a great bully. He disputed the 
pope's authority to regulate his own capital, and con- 
tended in arms for a right of asylum, which had been 
abolished as a common nuisance. On the pope ex- 
communicating the ambassador, Louis again invested 
Avignon, appealed to a General Council, arrested the 
papal nuncio at his court, and talked of creating the 
archbishop of Paris patriarch of France. Yet, after all 
this bluster, the king not only abandoned his pretensions 
and restored Avignon, but allowed the pope to make the 
French clergy retract their propositions, and " prostrate 
at the feet of his holiness," implore pardon for asserting 
the rights of their national church. Louis acted 
exactly like our own Plantagenet princes : he used the 
clergy to frighten the pope, and the pope to pillage the 
clergy. He was never at any moment true to his creed, 



> 



ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 



425 



his church, or his crown, "The State," he said, "is 
myself," and certainly he thought no interests so im- 
portant as his own. 

Innocent xi. was a man of talent, firmness, and 
piety. "They come with horses and chariots," he said, 
when the French ambassador entered Eome, "but we 
will walk in the name of the Lord." As much beyond 
the reach of bribery as of fear, he was one of the very 
few pontiffs who have shown themselves superior to that 
standing reproach of ecclesiastical governors, the ap- 
propriation to themselves and their relatives of the power 
and revenue entrusted to them for the good of the 
church. Innocent found that since the beginning of 
the century, not less than 17,000,000 of crowns had 
been consumed on private affection out of the revenues 
of the Holy See. Shocked at such a misuse of the con- 
tributions of the faithful, he issued a bull to suppress 
the practice for ever. 

One of the most curious chapters in history is this 
pope's alleged connection with our own English Eevo- 
lution of 1688. He was far too good and wise a man to 
hope anything from such a prince as J" ames n. ; and 
when Louis xiv. sought his approval of the barbarous 
measures against the Huguenots, the pope answered, 
"that was not the method employed by Christ: men 
must be led, not dragged, into the temple." 1 Instead 
of abetting his tyranny, Innocent joined the alliance 
against Louis as the common enemy of Europe. He 
was not repelled when told that the prince of Orange 
was to have the command on the Ehine, though the 
correspondence between that prince and his English 
adherents was certainly known at Eome. In fact, it 
was from that court that James was first apprised of the 



1 Ranke, viii. 16, 



426 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 



intended invasion. James was a mere vassal to France, 
and France was insnlting the pope in his own capital. 
Hence the singular result that the expulsion of popery 
from the British throne was partly the act of the pope 
himself. The papacy was obliged to lean on Protestant 
arms to rebut the outrages of the Eldest Son of the 
Church ! 

A deeper humiliation befel the pontificate from 
trusting to the power of France, after its reconciliation 
with Louis. Charles n. of Spain, who died childless in 
1700, bequeathed the succession to Philip of Anjou, the 
Dauphin's second son. 1 His will was made under the 
advice of Innocent xn., and Clement xi. did not hesitate 
to recommend the dangerous legacy to the acceptance of 
the French monarch. But Louis had previously con- 
cluded with England and Holland, a treaty of partition 
between the rival claimants. Spain, the Indies, and the 
Netherlands were to go to Ferdinand of Bavaria, Milan 
to the archduke Charles, and only the Two Sicilies to the 
Dauphin. The accession of a French prince to the undi- 
vided monarchy, was, therefore, resolutely opposed by 
the other powers, and, the Bavarian prince being dead, 
England and Holland formed a grand alliance with the 
emperor to place the archduke Charles on the Spanish 
throne. 2 On the other hand, France was joined by the 

1 The Dauphin was the son of Charles's eldest sister, and next heir, 
had not his mother renounced the Spanish succession on her marriage 
with the French king. The elector of Bavaria • was grand-nephew by 
another sister, who had also executed a renunciation, but this was said 
not to have been confirmed by the Cortes. A third claimant was the 
emperor Leopold, the husband of Charles's second sister, and sole male 
descendant of Ferdinand and Isabella : his rights were ceded to his second 
son Charles. 

2 A second treaty had been executed on the death of Ferdinand, which 
also came to nothing. These transactions were managed by William ni;, 
unknown to his ministers ; and Lord Somers, the chancellor, pleaded 
ignorance in answer to an impeachment of the House of Commons, in 1701. 



RE -ARRANGEMENTS OF ITALY. 



427 



elector of Bavaria, the elector of Cologne, the king of 
Portugal, and the dukes of Savoy and Milan. The 
elector of Brandenburg, who seized the opportunity to 
crown himself king of Prussia, declared for the grand 
alliance. All Europe was again plunged in war, and the 
pope had the misfortune to be on the unsuccessful side. 
The Imperial and Prussian armies entered Italy, and 
Clement xi., after formally congratulating Philip v., was 
compelled to recognise Charles in. as the Most Catholic 
King. The French ambassador left Eome declaring it 
was no longer the seat of the church, and the pope was 
often heard to say that he wished he repented of his sins 
as sincerely as he did of ascending the -pontifical throne. 
To add to the bitterness of his sorrow, it was Protestant 
England which mainly decided the fortunes of the war, 
and thereby changed the aspect of Europe. 

The peace of Utrecht (11th April, 1713) which 
closed the war of the Spanish succession, was concluded 
without any reference to the pontiff who claimed 
authority to create and depose kings. Charles haying 
succeeded his brother Joseph in the empire (a.d. 1711) 
relinquished the crown of Spain to Philip, retaining to 
himself the Netherlands and Lombardy, together with 
Naples an acknowledged fief of the Holy See, and 
Sardinia which it had claimed for centuries. Sicily, 
another papal fief, was bestowed with the title of king 
on Yictor Amadeus, duke of Savoy, while England 
retained only her conquests of Gibraltar and Minorca. 
Seven years after, the treaty of London gave Sardinia 
to Savoy in exchange for Sicily, which was reunited to 
Naples. Parma and Placentia, which had been fiefs of 
the church for two centuries, were assigned without 
asking the pope's leave to Don Carlos of Spain, who 
soon after succeeded to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. 
These possessions he induced the emperor to accept in 



428 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 



exchange for the crown of the Two Sicilies, and they 
were given to Francis, the husband of the emperor's 
only daughter, Maria Theresa. 

The German wars of succession which ensued on the 
death of Charles vi., resulted in the elevation of Francis 
to the imperial crown, and by the peace of Aix la 
Chapelle (1748), Italy was again redistributed without 
the least reference to the pope. France obtained the 
Austrian Netherlands, Lombardy was restored to the 
emperor, and Parma went to the Spanish Infante Philip. 
The pope, who once created kingdoms of Divine right, 
had lost all voice in the country which still looked on 
Eome as its capital. His ecclesiastical prerogatives were 
angrily questioned both in Spain and Italy, and the 
Venetian envoy reported that " whether it proceeded 
(as many people maintained) from the spread of en- 
lightened ideas, or from a tyrannical disposition to crush 
the weaker party, it was certain that the kings of Europe 
were making rapid progress in stripping the Koman See 
of all its temporal rights and privileges." 1 

Benedict xiv. acquired the odious denomination 
of the " Protestant " pope, from the concessions which 
he felt obliged to consent to in order to prevent 
a general revolt. To the crown of Spain he re- 
linquished nearly all his patronage in that kingdom 
for the sum of 1,143,330 crowns. The court of 
Naples obtained the power of taxing the clergy, and 
diminishing the number of holidays, two very un- 
welcome innovations to the priesthood and the laz- 
zaroni. Portugal was pacified with the title of 
"Most Faithful King," in addition to some extension of 
the crown patronage. Still Europe was far from being 

1 Ranke, Append., No. 162. Relazione di Mocenigo, where the differences 
are detailed with the Courts of Naples, Spain, Turin, France, Portugal, 
and the empire (1737). 



ATTACK ON THE JESUITS. 



429 



satisfied. The long accumulating distrust and hatred of 
the Jesuits found expression at the court of Kome, and 
the Protestant pope adopted measures of great severity 
for a thorough reform of the order. The secularity and 
immorality of its members were continually denounced 
not only by Jansenists, but by all who cherished evan- 
gelical opinions in the Latin Church. The Dominicans 
and other missionaries complained of their criminal 
compliance with idolatrous usages in India and China. 
This point was solemnly decided against the Jesuits in 
1704, but persisting in their own course, they obtained 
a new decree in 1715, which virtually sanctioned all 
they desired. Clement xi. gave them a still greater 
triumph in the bull Unigenitus (1713), which condemned 
the Jansenist doctrines of sin, grace, and justification, in 
stronger language than ever ; it even pronounced them 
heretical. The court of Eome was now afraid of its 
slaves. " The Jesuits dare everything," said the pope, 
and he had not the courage to offend them. 

Still the Jansenists, however oppressed and perse- 
cuted, propagated their views, not only in France, but 
throughout Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and even at 
Vienna and Brussels. 1 The persecutions they endured 
were more damaging to the church than to themselves, 
and public opinion set strongly against the Jesuits. 
Their wealth and influence excited the notice of the 
different governments : the first was the product of vast 
commercial and manufacturing speculations, the other 
arose from a monopoly of the confessionals and the 
schools. The sway thus acquired being directed to 
political more than spiritual ends, Benedict xiv. insti- 
tuted a searching reform ; but his successor falling back 
on the famous non possumus, declared it impossible to 

1 Llorente, Hist, de l'lnquis., iii. 93-97. 



430 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 



alter what had been sanctioned by the Conncil of Trent. 
The courts of Europe then proceeded after their own 
fashion. 

The first to act was Portugal, where the Jesuits 
were implicated in a plot to murder the king. The 
truth of the accusation remains in dispute, but it shows 
the altered temper of the times, that it was readily 
believed in a country on which the Order had very 
strong claims. The missionaries were torn from their 
simple Indians in Brazil, and carried (packed like 
negroes in a slave vessel) to Lisbon. From thence the 
whole Order was transported to Italy, and discharged, 
with a small allowance for their support, on the papal 
territories (1759). 

Similar measures followed soon after in Spain. The 
king caused the Jesuit colleges to be surrounded by 
troops at midnight on an appointed day, and the inmates 
to be seized and hurried to the coast, where they were 
embarked in vessels previously provided. On the follow- 
ing morning, not a Jesuit remained in Spain (1767). 
The involuntary emigrants were transported to Civita 
Vecchia, but the pope refused to let his children land, 
saying, that if all princes were to do the same his 
dominions would be too small to hold such unwelcome 
returns. The poor Jesuits, after being kept tossing 
three months on the Mediterranean, were landed in 
Corsica, without beds or other necessaries. The crowded 
vessels, the climate, and the hardships disposed of the 
aged and infirm. The king of Spain was at last pre- 
vailed on to grant the survivors a shilling a day, and 
with this provision they were allowed to settle in the 
Papal States. 

In Prance the Order was impleaded and formally 
suppressed, as an illegal association, by a decree of the 
parliament of Paris in 1762. Clement declared the 



SUPPRESSION OF THE ORDER. 



431 



sentence null and void, but he was afraid to publish 
his allocution: the society was abolished, and the 
revenues confiscated to the State. The example 
was followed by the courts of Naples and Parma, 
which, together with Tuscany and Sardinia, were now 
included in the Bourbon Family Compact. The pope 
protested in vain. The duke of Parma forbade all 
appeals to Borne. The Bourbon courts menaced further 
aggression. The Italian States, Genoa, Modena, Yenice, 
took part against the pope : the emperor was deaf to his 
entreaties. At last the ambassadors of the Bourbon 
sovereigns demanded the abolition of the Order itself, 
and Clement xiii. had summoned a consistory to con- 
sider the demand, when he was seized with convulsions 
and died (1769), not without suspicion of poison. 

His successor was the Franciscan friar Ganganelli, 
who had already shown in the Sacred College his sense 
of the dangers which menaced the church from the 
resolute attitude of the chief sovereigns of Europe. 
On the 21st July, 1773, he signed the bull which had 
been demanded for the entire suppression of the Jesuits. 
It was conceived in few but momentous words : 
" Inspired as we humbly trust by the Divine Spirit, 
urged by the duty of restoring the unanimity of the 
Church, convinced that the Company of Jesus can no 
longer render those services for which it was instituted, 
and moved by other reasons of prudence "and state 
policy which we hold locked in our breast, we abolish 
and annul the Society of Jesus, their functions, houses, 
and institutions." 

This decree amounted to a confession of the de- 
thronement of the papacy, and the triumph of Pro- 
testantism. Though demanded by papal states, and con- 
ceded by the pope himself, it was a measure to facilitate 
not the subdual of heresy, but the extension of anti-papal 



432 DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 

principles within the countries adhering to the Roman 
communion. The pope could not throw overboard an 
Order founded expressly to defend his supremacy, 
without danger to the supremacy itself. Clement xiv. 
observed as he signed the decree, that it would be the 
cause of his death, and the following year he expired, 
being the second pope who was suspected of falling a 
sacrifice to Jesuit revenge. Clement, like his prede- 
cessor, was a good and pious man, but unlike him, he was 
forward with concessions to the demand of the times. 
He suppressed the reading of the bull In carna Domini, 
enlarged the concessions to Sardinia and Portugal, and 
withdrew the process against Parma. " The popes of the 
18th century were, for the most part, as wise, liberal, and 
moderate as any who ever sat in the chair of St. Peter, 
but they felt the doom incurred by the deeds of their 
predecessors, they seemed to be haunted by forebodings 
of imminent destruction." 1 The tide of change swept 
on, and the Holy See, instead of directing its course, 
floated helplessly on the surface. 

The sons of Maria Theresa, Joseph and Leopold, 
successively grand-dukes of Tuscany, were princes of 
large and enlightened views. The elder was elected 
king of the Eomans in 1764, and on succeeding to the 
imperial crown on the death of his father, the following 
year, resigned Tuscany to his brother. The emperor 
Joseph ii. was a bold and ambitious reformer, but 
wanting in ballast. His rapid assaults shook the papal 
system in Germany to its foundation. Anxious to 
consolidate the imperial dominions under one govern- 
ment, and to supersede their ten languages by the 
Austrian dialect, he would endure no interference from 
without. He declared all religious Orders free from 



1 Mariotti. 



ABOLITION OF THE INQUISITION. 433 

foreign dependence, and the clergy entitled to grant 
marriage licenses without any foreign sanction. He 
superseded by imperial edict the canons against mixed 
marriages, abolished the censorship of the press, together 
with pilgrimages and many other superstitious obser- 
vances. Above all, he suppressed two-thirds of the 
monasteries. Pius vi. made a journey to Vienna in 
order to remonstrate, but the emperor, alternately stig- 
matised as Jansenist and Infidel, remained immovable. 
He was supported by the ecclesiastical electors, who, 
in a declaration at Ems, desired the Eoman pontiff to 
content himself with the primacy enjoyed by his see in 
the primitive church. 

None of these movements, however, were based on 
really evangelical principles, or had any higher object 
than to advance the power of the crown and the prelates 
at the expense of the papacy. They were accordingly 
doomed to failure. The Austrian populace resented the 
abrogation of their favourite superstitions, and the 
ambition of Prussia inaugurated a Germanic confederacy 
to check the rising power of Austria. The political 
struggles that ensued effaced almost all the imperial 
reforms. Still the German church was permanently 
shaken in its attachment to the papacy. Leopold, who 
was confessedly a Jansenist, introduced similar reforms 
in Tuscany, and the synod of Pistoia discussed, at the 
very gates of Eome, fifty-seven propositions, which 
struck at the roots of the entire papal system (1787). 

The Inquisition was abolished in Naples, Tuscany, 
and Parma, in 1782. Naples followed up the step with 
further reforms; monasteries were suppressed in 1784, 
and in 1788 the Queen Eegent formally renounced the 
feudal dependence on Eome which had existed from the 
foundation of the kingdom. From one end of Europe 
to the other there was not a single state reposing con- 

2 f 



434 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 



fidence in the Eoman court, when the French Bevolution 
burst like a hurricane on its devoted head, and swept it 
away in a moment. 

Many causes conduced to the long-gathered hate 
and fury of this terrible explosion. The despotism and 
frightful licentiousness of the French court, the cor- 
ruption of all public offices, including the courts of 
justice, and the oppressive privileges of the nobles, had 
thoroughly disintegrated the social fabric. The in- 
human pride of the aristocracy was repaid by the savage 
animosity of the canaille. The successful insurrection 
of the British provinces in America had excited a re- 
publican spirit, which the literary men laboured to 
extend and inflame. "War and peculation had reduced 
the finances to the brink of national bankruptcy, and in 
the circle which monopolised the government, and looked 
with contempt on the common people, there was not one 
who possessed the intellect, the principle, and the heart 
necessary to a great statesman. 

The greatest source of danger, however, was the 
Church : so far from doing its rightful work by 
uniting the different classes of society in the bonds of 
Christian fellowship, the French church was itself the 
most disintegrated and the most detested portion of the 
constitution. The old Gallican independence had been 
prostrated at the feet of the crown and the pope ; the 
persecution of the Jansenists had alienated the pious ; 
while the dissensions of the clergy excited the contempt 
of the scoffer. The wealth and secularity of the prelates 
and court favourites contrasted scandalously with the 
apostolical poverty of the country clergy. The un- 
believer could even point at ecclesiastics who outran 
the lay sceptics in turpitude and infidelity. Notwith- 
standing the zeal and learning of some of the clergy, 
and the ignorant affectionate piety still subsisting among 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 



435 



the peasantry, the Church was diseased to the core, and 
the fountain of the poison was universally felt to be at 
Eome. 

The infidel philosophy of the eighteenth century was 
unquestionably the offspring of the superstitious bigotry 
and pecuniary corruption which reigned in the Holy 
See. When the necessities of the young king obliged his 
minister of finance to have recourse to the States General, 
the fusion of the three Chambers into one National 
Assembly, whereby the entire power was transferred to 
the most numerous order, was brought about by the 
lower clergy and the nobility. The classes which in 
England would be called the country gentry and clergy, 
united with the burgesses against the prelates and 
grand seigneurs. The first act of this national assembly 
(while the king was yet upon the throne) was the con- 
fiscation of the church property, and the conversion of 
the clergy into State stipendiaries. A new distribution 
of dioceses and duties followed, coupled with a dissolu- 
tion of vows, and the suppression of religious orders. 
The connexion with Eome was dissolved, and the clergy 
were required to swear obedience to the State. These 
reforms were cordially approved by the Jansenists, 
and, with the exception of the abolition of the papal 
supremacy and the religious orders, they have been 
retained to the present day. 

The Jansenists gave their consent also to the more 
extreme measure of substituting popular election for 
canonical institution, which the then existing authorities 
refused to grant. In all this it was the papacy, more 
than the National Church, which was assailed. It was 
an attempt to pull down Babylon, without destroying 
the substructure on which she was seated. For alas ! 
the Word of God, the primitive rule of faith, and the 
rule of the Protestant Kef or mat ion, was not the rule 

2 e 2 



436 DECLINE AND FALL OE THE PAPACY. 

of the French Bevolution. The Huguenots had been 
crushed and scattered ; the Jansenists halted between 
two opinions, and reformers of another spirit quickly 
seized the reins. Men of blood, confounding the church 
with her ministers, defied God Himself, on account of 
the wickedness perpetrated in His name. 

These men hurled the whole power of France with 
insane animosity against the rest of Europe. They 
entered on a universal war of propagandism, everywhere 
calling on the ruled to rise against their rulers; and so 
numerous were the abuses both in Church and State, 
that everywhere the appeal was responded to. It is 
worthy of observation that only those nations which 
eschewed popery were able to resist the tide. Every 
throne and every church, without exception, that owned the 
supremacy of Rome, id as prostrated in the dust. The 
Holy Eoman Empire itself was dissolved, and the chair 
of St. Peter overturned : the powers opposed to popery 
were those alone which stood fast, and eventually rescued 
the others. 

Hostilities began with a declaration of war by the 
French republic against the queen's father, the emperor 
Leopold, for protesting against the principles of the 
Eevolution. The coalition of Austria with Prussia and 
Holland was replied to by the trial and execution of 
the unhappy Louis xvi., 21st January, 1793, and ten 
days after the National Assembly extended the field 
of war to England and Spain. All that remained of 
the French people, after the slaughter or flight of the 
royalists, rushed into these hostilities. The ■ kingdom 
was one entire camp. The conscription drafted into the 
ranks all the single men between 18 and ' 25 years of 
age : the married men were employed in making arms, 
the women military clothing : the old men were re- 
quired to preach republicanism : even the children were 



NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 



437 



made to pull liut for the field hospitals. It was a 
people's crusade agaiust crowns and mitres. Belgium 
was annexed at a swoop. 2uce and Savoy followed, and 
the Eevolution was at the gates of Italy. Ferdinand, 
grand-duke of Tuscany, brother to the French queen 
whose life still hung in the balance, acknowledged the 
republic ; the king of JS~aples declared war against it ; 
the pope excommunicated it. The Corsicans placed their 
island under British protection (1794); but the same 
year a young Corsican officer, in the French Artillery, 
was examining the fortifications of Genoa, and two years 
later the same officer led a French army to the subju- 
gation of Italy. 

The Eeign of Terror, and the worship of Eeason, 
came to an end in 1794. Eobespierre, who acted as 
high priest to the God of Nature, with seventy of his 
adherents, were sent to the guillotine, and the tri- 
coloured flag supplanted the blood-stained banner of 
Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. The first effect of this 
halt in the rush of democracy was peace, the next 
the renewal of war on a more gigantic scale, under the 
direction of Xapoleon Bonaparte. His rigorous sup- 
pression of the Paris mob (5th October, 1795) changed 
the destinies not of France only, but of Europe. The 
Eevolution, which began with the rights of man, passed 
under the control of a professor of war ; a man who 
regarded neither law, liberty, nor life itself, in the 
acquisition of power ; who, more than any other, 
bartered nations like cattle, and bestowed crowns as 
mere pieces of patronage ; with whom religion was 
always a jest or a matter of politics ; whose remorse- 
less despotism abrogated even the most sacred ties 
of humanity ; who divorced his innocent wife at the 
call of ambition, and made his brothers repudiate the 
mothers of their children. The philosophy which had 



438 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PAPACY. 



exchanged the Gospel for the worship of Reason, and 
enthroned the God of Nature in a reign of terror, 
culminated in, perhaps, the greatest incarnation of self 
which the world has ever seen. 

A single campaign was enough to make Bonaparte, 
then only in his 29th year, 1 master of Italy. Sardinia, 
Parma, Naples, were successively reduced. Milan 
was wrested from the Austrians, and the Legations from 
the pope. 2 Modena, Eeggio, Bologna, and Ferrara 
were formed into the Cispadane Republic under the 
protection of France. The next year witnessed the fall 
of Verona, Genoa, Leghorn, and Venice. The Austrians, 
who alone had continued the war, were everywhere 
defeated, and the peace of Campo Formio, signed 
17th October, 1797, attested their humiliation. By this 
treaty the merchant princes of Venice, after a career of 
more than ten centuries, suffered the fate they once 
helped to inflict on the eastern empire. Their do- 
minions were partitioned between the French and the 
Austrians : the sincerity of French republicanism was 
shown by delivering up the seat of the only republic 
that held place among European sovereigns to an abso- 
lute monarchy ; its enlightenment, by consigning the 
proudest home of Italian civilisation to a German 
autocrat. 

The French portion of the spoi], united with the 
Cispadane Republic, Milan, Mantua, Massa, Carrara, 
Ravenna, Farenza, and Eimini, constituted the Cisalpine 
Republic. Many of these were unquestioned fiefs of the 
Holy See ; but far from asking the pope's consent to 

1 He was born February 5, 1768, but he chose to say August, 1769, 
because Corsica had then been incorporated into the French monarchy. — 
Alison 's " History of Europe^ cap. xx., note. 

2 The Legations were those acquisitions of the Holy See which the 
pope governed by Legates, viz., Bologna, Romagna, and Ferrara, 



> 



EXTINCTION OF THE PAPACY. 



439 



their alienation, Bonaparte exacted of him five millions 
of livres towards the expenses of the war ; while Pius vi. 
was pleading the neutrality of his position as the common 
father of Christendom, the unscrupulous soldier attacked 
and routed his troops, and forced him to a treaty which 
closed his ports against the adversaries of France, ceded 
Avignon and the Yenaisin to the French, abandoned 
the Legations, and contributed a further subsidy to the 
conqueror of thirty millions of francs, with a hundred of 
the finest works of art in Borne. 1 

The object of the French directory was the destruc- 
tion of the pontifical government, as the irreconcilable 
enemy of the republic. They urged their general to 
drive the pope and cardinals out of Eome. Bonaparte 
proposed to give the Eternal City to the king of Spain, 
on condition of his recognising the French republic. 
Failing in this, he resorted to a system of pillage which 
exhausted its resources, and finally a democratical 
demonstration was got up at Borne in the accustomed 
manner, in which one of the French envoys was killed 
by the fire of the pontifical troops. This misfortune 
afforded the desired pretext. The French army pouring 
in under Berthier planted the tri-colour on the Capitol, 
while their Boman confederates displaying the famous 
insignia, 8. P. Q. B., shouted for liberty. The aged 
pope was summoned to surrender the temporal govern- 
ment; on his refusal, he was dragged from the altar, 
and the soldiers plundered the Vatican in presence 
of its owner. They stripped his own chamber : when 
he asked to be left to die in peace, he was brutally 
answered that any place would serve to die in. His 
rings were torn from his fingers, and finally, after de- 
claring the temporal power abolished, the victors carried 

1 Treaty of Tolentino, February 19, 1797. — Alison's " History of 
Europe" cap. xx. 



440 DECLINE AND EALL OF THE PAPACY. 

the pope prisoner into Tuscany, whence he never re- 
turned (1798). 

The Papal States, converted into the Roman Republic, 
were declared to be in perpetual alliance with France, 
but the French general was the real master at Rome. 
The citizens groaned under his terrible exactions. 
Churches, convents, palaces, were stripped to the bare 
walls. The works of "art were nearly all carried off. 
The territorial possessions of the clergy and monks 
were declared national property, and their former owners 
cast into prison. The papacy was extinct : not a vestige 
of its existence remained; and among all the Eoman 
Catholic powers not a finger was stirred in its defence. 
The Eternal City had no longer prince or pontiff ; its 
bishop was a dying captive in foreign lands ; and the 
decree was already announced that no successor would 
be allowed in his place. 



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CHAPTEE XVI. 



THE FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 

Revolution in France — Resistance of Protestant Europe — Death of the 
pope in a French Prison — Accession of Pius vn. — Bonaparte's 
Conquest of Italy — Concordat with France — Humiliation of the 
Papacy — Coronation of Napoleon — His Importunities on the pope — 
Tergiversation of Prussia — Kingdom of Italy — Dissolution of Holy 
RomanJEmpire — Arrest of the pope — Removal to France — Annexation 
of the Papal States — Surrender of Pius — Fall of Napoleon — Release 
of the pope — Return to Rome — Cardinal in London — -Reorganisation 
of Italy — Restitution of Papal States — Popish gratitude to England 
— Intolerance — Pope Leo xii. — Jubilee — Unchristian Epitaph — 
Pius vili. — English Cardinal — Second French Revolution — 
Gregory xvi.— Repression of Revolution — Pius ix. — Liberal Tenden- 
cies — Alliance with Sardinia — Riot at Rome — Flight of Pius — Inter- 
ference of the French Republic — Papal Aggression — Coalition of 
France and Sardinia. Expulsion of Austrians from Lombardy — 
Revolution in Kingdom of Naples — The Legations — New Kingdom 
of Italy. 

The fury with which, the French Bepublic poured its 
forces upon Europe carried for the moment everything 
before it. Few were the Governments strong enough 
in the confidence of their subjects to despise an armed 
appeal to disaffection. The Reign of Terror and the 
Conscription drove the bulk of the French population 
into the field, and the first successes awoke that in- 
toxicating passion for military glory which is never 
long dormant in this impulsive nation. Army after 
army was discharged upon the adjoining kingdoms, with 
the violence of a volcano, and the scathing torrent bore 
down all resistance. It was not long, however, before 
the powers of Europe saw the necessity of uniting 
against the common enemy. Austria, Prussia, and 
Holland formed a coalition in 1792, but the two former, 
gorged with the spoils of unhappy Poland, were in 



444 



THE FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 



no condition to champion the rights of nations. Prussia 
quickly changed sides to partake the spoils of the 
invader. Of the continental powers Eussia made the 
strongest stand, but England was the only country that, 
seeking no unlawful gain in the confusion, opposed the 
tide of aggression from first to last, and at one time 
sustained alone the cause of national independence. 

To the champions of justice the Eoman State was an 
object of equal interest with any other subverted nation- 
ality. Hence the singular phenomenon, that the only 
defenders of the papal government were the powers most 
opposed to popery. It was no authority of the Eoman 
See which repelled the waves of democracy and irre- 
ligion; nor was it a Eoman Catholic hand that replaced 
the fallen chair of St. Peter. The pontifical throne 
owed its re-establishment to Eussia, whose emperor is 
the pope of a rival communion, and to England, so long 
the object of papal anathemas, whose constitution 
demands the exclusion of popery from the throne. 

The French, after a furious struggle with Naples and 
Sardinia, had possessed themselves of the entire penin- 
sula, when the army of Suwarrow entered Italy in April 
1799. Bonaparte was then absent on his Egyptian 
expedition, and a succession of defeats reversed the 
French successes with marvellous rapidity. Lombardy 
and Sardinia were recovered by the allied Austrians 
and Russians. The English fleet liberated Naples, and 
Commodore Troubridge, anchoring at the mouth of 
the Tiber, received the surrender of Eome on the 
29th September, 1799. The Neapolitan forces took 
possession of the Castle of St. Angelo the next month. 

The pope was still languishing in captivity, and his 
gaolers, alarmed at the prospect of losing their prisoner, 
hurried him away to France, where death released him 
from his suffering the following March. The cardinals 



> 



ELECTION OF PIUS VII. 



445 



took advantage of the momentary abasement of the 
French to proceed to the election of a successor : but 
not at Borne, nor with wonted pontifical pomp, was the 
new pope enthroned. The Eternal City groaned under 
the military exactions of the Neapolitans. The Papal 
States were traversed by opposing armies. It was at 
Venice that the conclave, with maimed and mutilated 
rites, proclaimed the cardinal Gregory Barnabas Chiara- 
monte, by the title of Pius vn. 

Proceeding soon after to Eome, Pius commenced 
the arduous task of restoring the finances and trade 
of his exhausted dominions : but peace was yet distant 
from Italy. 1 Bonaparte having escaped from Egypt, 
and been invested with the authority of Eirst Consul, 
crossed the Great St. Bernard with an army of 
36,000 men and forty guns, and descended like 
another Hannibal on the plains of Italy, resolved to 
recover the tarnished honours of Erance. The Eussians 
were now on his side, and the Austrians proved incapable 
of resisting him. The victory of Marengo (14th June, 
1800) changed again the fate of Italy: the Cisalpine 
republic was restored ; Genoa became the Ligurian 
republic ; Tuscany was converted into the kingdom of 
Etruria, and Piedmont annexed to Erance. 2 

The pope again trembled for Eome, but the Eirst 

1 Cardinal Wiseman claims for Pius vii. at this early period the honour 
of establishing the currency and free trade on the enlightened basis of 
modern policy. — Recollections of the Last Four Popes. 

2 The emperor was compelled to recognise these arrangements by the 
treaty of Lanneville (9th February, 1801), which confirmed the humiliating 
conditions of Campo Formio, and ceded the left bank of the Rhine to 
France. Bonaparte gave the Etrurian crown to Louis, prince of Parma, in 
exchange for that duchy. Bonaparte insisted on Francis signing this 
treaty, as emperor of Germany, on behalf of the empire, and not only of 
Austria. The act was obviously in excess of his power, and the diet 
made some difficulty in confirming it. The princes saw that the empire 
was no longer able to protect itself, and the Confederation of the Rhine, 
formed under Napoleon, effected the dissolution of the German empire. 



446 



THE FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 



Consul had acquired new views with his new title and 
authority. Meditating further assaults on the French 
democracy, he saw the advantage of connecting them 
with national traditions, by restoring the Established 
Church. From the field of Marengo he sent proposals 
to Pius vii. j which resulted in a concordat. The pope 
conceded the alienation of the church lands, amounting 
to £16,000,000 in value, and the new organisation of 
the clergy as stipendiaries of the State. The First 
Consul on his part restored the right of canonical 
institution, and even abandoned the State veto on the 
appointments. On these conditions the Church of Eome 
became again the Established Church in France ; but 
Napoleon had no idea of restoring the papacy of old 
times. The primacy of Eome was not only limited to 
purely spiritual questions, but the Gallican declaration 
of 1682 was insisted on as a fundamental principle of 
the constitution. The church was subjected to State 
control. 'No monastic vows were tolerated ; marriage 
was made a civil rite ; Protestant churches were legal- 
ised ; and all was carried out in an anti-Eoman spirit. 

The papal authority was assailed with still greater 
rudeness by Bonaparte's proceedings in Germany. The 
ecclesiastical electorates of the Holy Roman Empire 
were occupied with as little scruple as any other princi- 
palities. He gave away bishoprics, as temporal lordships, 
to protestant and papist indifferently. Some Roman 
Catholic States became Protestant. The canon law was 
everywhere contemptuously swept away. Nearer home 
the ruthless and ambitious destroyer declared himself 
president of the Italian republic which replaced the 
Cisalpine ; and the concordat effected in this capacity 
with Pius deprived the pope of all temporal patronage. 
Pius declined to publish its provisions, for fear of losing 
his last hold on the respect of his subjects. 



CORONATION OF NAPOLEON. 



447 



In this humiliated condition the pope was summoned 
to Paris to assist in the coronation of the modern Charle- 
magne. His function was limited to the benediction : 
Napoleon would allow no hand but his own to place the 
imperial crown on his head, and that of his consort 
Josephine. As the price of his condescension, Pius ven- 
tured to solicit the abrogation of the declaration of 1682, 
and the restoration of the Legations to the Holy See. 
Napoleon refused both, but advised him to quit Eome 
and trust to the eldest son of the church ; giving him the 
choice of residing either at Paris, or at Avignon, now 
incorporated with the French empire. The offer sounded 
so like a command, that Pius told him that, before be- 
coming his guest, a resignation of the papacy had been 
duly deposited at Palermo, in order that a successor 
might be chosen, in the event of his sharing the fate of 
his predecessor. 

The intrepid pontiff was allowed to withdraw from 
these too pressing hospitalities, but could not escape, 
in his own capital, the importunities of the French 
emperor, who regarded Rome and the church itself as 
subject to his dominion. " You are sovereign of Rome," 
he wrote to Pius, " but I am its emperor: all Italy 
must be subject to my law : your holiness must pay 
me the same respect in temporal matters that I pay you 
in spiritual matters." To the viceroy of Italy he wrote 
that "the rights of the tiara consist in humiliation and 
prayer : I hold my crown from God and my people. 
The court of Rome will always find me a Charlemagne, 
never a Louis le D^bonnaire. Jesus Christ has not 
instituted a pilgrimage to Rome as Mohammed did to 
Mecca." With these views he imperiously demanded 
the expulsion of the English, Russian, Sardinian, and 
Swedish envoys from the Court of Home : "my enemies 
must be yours," was his arrogant decree. 



448 



THE FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 



These pretensions became the more embarrassing, as 
all Europe seemed to be yielding before the new power. 
Napoleon practised on a gigantic scale the art of buying 
support with other people's property. The breach be- 
tween Austria and Russia in 1799, was occasioned by 
his offering Malta to Paul, and partly by a fear on the 
part of the Austrians that Russian zeal might insist on 
restoring Venice with the rest of Italy to the legitimate 
owners. The first power to take up arms against the 
French republic was Prussia ; it was also the first to 
secede from the coalition and make peace, after seizing 
Poland on pretence of suppressing Jacobinism. In 1796, 
Prussia, becoming the secret ally of France, in order 
to obtain Munster, thwarted all the measures taken 
against her in the empire. In December 1800, Prussia 
rejoined the coalition, but the following year was 
bribed back again to France by the offer of Hanover, 
Hildesheim, and Goslar. The Prussian monarch entered 
Hanover in the guise of an ally of George in. ; then 
seizing the government, he closed the Elbe and the 
Weser against the vessels of the lawful ruler. The 
king of Prussia was the first, again, to pay homage to ( 
the emperor Napoleon, and wear the grand cross of the 
new Legion of Honour. The crown of Hanover rewarded 
his servility, but when Napoleon offered George in. his j 
own dominions again, as one of the conditions of peace 
with England, Prussia complained of the " robbery," 
and talked loudly of the sin of foreign aggression ! The 
French eagle, however, tolerated no rebellion among the ; 
kites. Napoleon turned upon his vassal, scattered his 
forces at Jena, and, occupying Berlin as a conqueror, r 
dictated from that capital the celebrated " continental 
system," by which England was to be isolated from 
Europe on pain of the modern Charlemagne's imperial 
displeasure. 



EXTINCTION OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. 449 



In 1805, Napoleon, having erected northern Italy 
into a kingdom, assumed the iron crown at Milan : 1 the 
Ligurian republic he annexed to France, and gave the 
duchies of Lucca and Guastalla to two of his sisters. 
The same year he entered Vienna, and extinguished the 
German empire on the field of Austerlitz. The emperor 
Francis ceded his Venetian territories to the new king- 
dom of Italy, and a large part of Austria to Napoleon's 
German allies. In exchange for two thousand square 
miles of territory and two and a-half millions of subjects, 
he received the dominions of the suppressed archi- 
episcopal electorate of Saltzburg, and the grand master- 
ship of the Teutonic Order which was taken from Prus- 
sia. After this treaty the German empire was a farce. 
The Confederation of the Ehine placed its leading 
princes under the protection of Napoleon, and Francis, 
finding himself deserted, issued a manifesto renouncing 
the Teutonic sceptre, and limiting himself to the title of 
emperor of Austria (August 1806). 

Thus expired the last relic of the Holy Eoman 
empire. The crown which Leo placed on the head of 
Charlemagne, a thousand years before, was abandoned 
before the resistless swoop of the French eagles. Napo- 
leon asserted the ancient title of emperor of the 
Franks, and nowhere was he more determined to main- 
tain its authority than in Borne. 

Pius rejected his pretensions with the gentle but 
invincible firmness which constituted the strength of 
his character. To punish his refusal to declare war 
against England, the French troops again entered Eome 
(2nd February 1808), exiled the cardinals, and kept 
the pope a prisoner in his palace on Monte Cavallo, 

1 Again the self-confident monarch placed the crown upon his own 
head, and Josephine's, refusing to receive it at the baud, of the arch- 
bishop. 



450 



THE FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 



His secretary of state, cardinal Pacca, only escaped arrest 
by becoming the pontiff's companion in his private 
apartments. For a whole year they endured their 
confinement without yielding. In May 1809, Napoleon 
annexed the Papal States to the French empire, of 
which Borne was declared to be the second city. 
When informed of the decree, the pope excommunicated 
the emperor by a bull, written with his own hand, which 
was affixed at St. Peter's, and other churches, by agents 
who escaped detection. This daring act provoked the 
resentment and alarm of the French troops. They broke 
into the palace by night, arrested the pope and the 
cardinal, and conveyed them out of Eome with so much 
haste that their two purses contained but a single 
papetto (lOd). 

At Florence the cardinal was separated from the 
pope, and sent to a prison in Savoy, where he lay a 
close prisoner for nearly four years. Pius was hurried 
across the Alps to Grenoble, whence by Napoleon's 
order he was transferred to Savona. Affecting to 
disclaim the violence of his officers, the emperor took 
care to sanction what had been done : he revoked the 
gift of Charlemagne, and confirmed the annexation of the 
Papal States. He subsequently acknowledged that his 
object was to have the pope in France, and, by making 
him his own instrument, rule the Latin Church, as the 
Czar ruled the Eussian. The pope, however, remained 
impracticable, and was detained a close prisoner till 
the allied armies crossed the Ehine in the spring of 1814. 

Meantime, the Eoman states enjoyed the unques- 
tionable advantages of French administration. The 
improvements at Eome were marvellous : monuments 
disinterred from the accumulations of centuries, 1 the 

1 The columns of Jupiter Tonans and Jupiter Stator, the interior of 
the Coliseum, the Forum, with the Via Sacra, Trajan's pillar, the temple 



ABDICATION OF THE TEMPORAL POWER. 451 

rapid suppression of brigandage, and surveys for the 
long neglected drainage of the Pontine marshes, attested 
the superiority of secular to priestly government. 
If Napoleon had been the lawful king, and could have 
been content to rule at amity with other nations, Eome 
and the Italians might lament the day when the modern 
Charlemagne was discrowned. The emperor, however, 
could tolerate no power but his own. The pope, presuming 
to exercise his spiritual functions to the displeasure of 
his gaoler, was treated with great severity at Savona, 
His counsellors were taken from him and confined in 
different dungeons. The emperor had the meanness to 
reduce the table allowance of the pope and his household 
to five paoli (2s. 6d.) a day : the supreme pontiff was 
even seen mending his own clothes. 

On Napoleon's departure for Moscow, Pius was 
removed to Eontainebleau, and treated with greater 
liberality, but still carefully secluded from all advisers 
likely to counsel resistance to the imperial will. He 
agreed to abdicate the temporal authority, and the 
emperor was sanguine of inducing him to accept the 
archbishopric of Paris in commenclam with the See of 
Eome, translating the seat of power to the French me- 
tropolis. He promised to invest this new Holy See 
with greater authority than had ever been known 
at Eome. All nations should obey it : all the world 
should tremble at its thunder. It was for this that he 
filled Paris with the art-treasures of other capitals, and 
lamented that he could not transport St. Peter's itself. 

On his return from Moscow, Napoleon's first act was 
to visit the pope, when, exercising his well-known powers 
of dissimulation, he cajoled the old man into a con- 
cordat, which tacitly abandoned the temporal power, 

of Vesta, and the baths of Titus, owe their discovery or restoration to this 
period. 

2 6 2 



452 



THE FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 



and placed the spiritual functions of the papacy in 
accord with the French empire. Pius was at once set 
at liberty and loaded with favours. The cardinals were 
allowed to rejoin him from their several exiles ; but 
when Pacca arrived, the pope told him with tears that 
he had been overreached and deluded. The secretary 
agreed that the concordat was dishonourable, and, in a 
letter to the emperor, Pius retracted his consent, and 
publicly owned his repentance. 

By this time Napoleon was in no condition to resort 
to violence. The retreat from Moscow had sealed his 
doom. Pius, taking heart, declared he would listen to 
no further proposals, save in Eome. He was suffered 
to depart from Fontainebleau (22nd January 1813), and 
a decree of the 10th February 1814, restored Rome and 
the district of Thrasymene to his sovereignty. Still he 
was detained, on various pretexts, in the south of France, 
till Napoleon's power was no more. The pope was still in 
Provence when Paris capitulated to the allied sovereigns, 
30th March 1814. Orders were instantly issued to con- 
duct him with all the honours of his rank to the Italian 
frontier, and he entered Eome on the 24th May. 

Pius's first object was to recover the entire sovereignty 
of the ecclesiastical states ; and again it was on protes- 
tant England that he relied for support. During the 
visit of the allied sovereigns to London in June 1814, 
cardinal Consalvi presented himself with a letter from 
the pope, and was admitted to an audience of the prince 
Eegent. For the first time for above two centuries, a 
cardinal legate was seen in his ecclesiastical habit in the 
streets of London. The prince Eegent further violated 
the restraints of the constitution by writing to the pope 
in reply : the cost of conveying to Eome the works of 
art, restored to their owners from the spoils accumulated 
in Paris, was paid by the English sovereign. 



RESTORATION OF THE PAPACY. 



453 



In the reorganisation of Italy, Anstria gave np 
Parma as an appanage for the empress Maria Louisa 
and the infant king of Borne ; 1 while the late master of 
Europe retired to the diminutive "empire" of the 
island of Elba. This restless spirit could not long 
be caged in that obscure retreat. Eelanding in France, 
Napoleon made that desperate attempt to recover his 
former throne, which ended in dethronement and exile. 
Murat, who, on the last occasion, had saved his crown at 
Naples by abandoning his benefactor now threw away both 
throne and life in his cause. The Bourbons returned to 
Naples and to Paris ; and Italy, so long tossed on the 
waves of French aggression, was invited to repose under 
the restoration effected at the Congress of Vienna. 

The arrangements thus briefly noted had in view the 
restoration of the balance of power, as it stood before the 
eruption of French republicanism. Eeligious differences 
were merged in political concord, and the papacy, re- 
garded as a temporal power, owed its restitution almost 
entirely to protestant and antipapal arms. Of the great 
powers who dictated the peace of Europe, Austria alone 
shared the religious communion of Eome, but if Austria 
had prevailed, the pope would hardly have recovered his 
dominions uncurtailed. The British plenipotentiaries 
were instructed to support restitution pure and simple, 
and, Prussia adopting the same view, Pius recovered the 
sovereignty of the three Legations, the Marches of 
Ancona, and the duchies of Benevento and Ponte Corvo. 
It was not unnatural to suppose that such liberality on 

1 Napoleon bestowed this title on his son, born the 20th March 1811. 
The emperor's divorce from Josephine, and his marriage with the Austrian 
archduchess Maria Louisa, took place the previous year : both were in 
open breach of the laws of God and man, and only legalised by his 
arbitrary will. The pride of Austria was, indeed, humiliated when the 
emperor's daughter was delivered over as second wife, in the lifetime of 
the lawful partner, to a Corsican soldier. 



454 



THE EREXCH RECONSTRUCTION. 



the part of the antipapal powers, coupled with the mani- 
fest change in the situation of the world, would have im- 
pressed even the Eoman See with a spirit of moderation 
and gratitude. British statesmen openly indulged the 
belief that nothing was again to be apprehended from the 
intolerance of the papacy. Shocked at the enormous 
crimes which had flowed from infidelity, they were 
anxious to encourage any form of Christianity. A strong 
desire was manifested to obliterate distinctions of creed, 
and restore equality and political rights to papists and 
protestants alike. 

Such sentiments may be simulated, but are never 
truly reciprocated, at Borne. Pius yii. acknowledged 
his obligations to England with every appearance of 
sincerity ; but the way in which he thought fit to 
manifest his gratitude, was by labouring for our return 
to the papal yoke. He revived the English college 
at Borne for the conversion of his benefactors. He 
encouraged the building of a Boman Catholic chapel, 
calling itself a pro-cathedral, in London. On presenting 
it with a magnificent chalice, he said that " nothing was 
too good for the English catholics." This was his 
reading of his obligations to England. In the same 
spirit he hastened to revive the order of Jesuits at 
Borne (7th August 1814), an example immediately 
followed in Spain. The inquisition was next restored. 
In Sardinia, Tuscany, and Xaples, the priests resumed their 
intolerance, and the cry of popular discontent rose loud in 
Italy, before the thunders of Waterloo had ceased to re- 
verberate. In France, the government of Louis xviii. 
sacrificed the last vestige of Gallican independence, to 
place the Church in a dependence on Borne never tole- 
rated in any former age. 

In 1817 the pope fulminated a condemnation of Bible 
societies, and the censure was renewed by his successor 



JUBILEE AT ROME. 



455 



Leo xii. : the Word of God was again subjected to 
persecution from the inquisition. Pius vn. closed his 
long and troubled pontificate on the 16th August 1823, 
enjoying, according to his admiring biographer, the 
steady and unvarying love and veneration of his subjects. 
A cardinal may be pardoned for believing that " there is 
no instance in history where the judgment of posterity 
is less likely to reverse the verdict of contemporaries." 1 
His successor, notwithstanding the formidable ap- 
pellations of Hannibal (della Genga) and Leo 2 was a 
quiet, respectable prelate, chiefly renowned for cele- 
brating the jubilee, which the troubles of his prede- 
cessor had prevented from inaugurating the century. 
The Eoman Catholic powers, afraid of political disturb- 
ances, threw cold water on the project ; but, unmoved 
by all remonstrances, the pope knocked with his silver 
hammer on the long closed " Holy Gate " of St. Peter's 
on Christmas Eve 1824, and, to the joy of an eye wit- 
ness, admitted in his train the first of that sad succession 
of apostates from the ministry of the English Church, 
whose perversion is the disgrace of our times. 3 "The 
Holy See did all it could to make Eome spiritually at- 
tractive." 4 Indulgences were copiously imparted, and 
" multitudes went back full of gratitude to heaven and the 
Holy See for the blessings they had received, and the edi- 
fying scenes in which they had been allowed to partake." 5 

1 Wiseman, p. 205. 

2 It is not generally known that in the signature to the originals of 
bulls the pope retains his original Christian name, thus : Leo xn. would 
continue to sign himself " Hannibal." — Card. Wiseman, p. 223, note. 

» Ibid., p. 271. * Ibid., p. 272. 

5 Among these edifying scenes, the cardinal describes with great 
unction the pope's washing the feet of the pilgrims in the Holy Week. 
He probably does not mean the blasphemy contained in his words when he 
writes of the pilgrim so honoured that, "he would find himself waited on at 
table by that Master who, coming suddenly in the night upon his servants, 
and finding them watching, knows how to gird himself, and passing along, 
ministers to them," p. 281. After this, it is amusing to find the cardinal 



456 



THE FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 



Cardinal Wiseman, whose expressions these are, asserts 
that, in a financial point of view, Eome was no gainer 
by the ceremonial ; a striking evidence of the advance 
of intelligence in Europe, where " pilgrims" are no 
longer disposed to throw away their money on Friar 
Tetzel's ware. Leo died in 1829, after approving an 
epitaph much admired by his friends, but which, ex- 
pressing no hope in Christ or in God, commends 
his soul "to Leo the Great, his patron in heaven P n 

Cardinal Castiglioni, who succeeded as Pius viii., 
and held the See but twenty months, probably owed his 
elevation to the age and infirmities, which promised the 
conclave an early repetition of its function. His brief 
pontificate was signalised by the creation of an English 
cardinal, in prompt acknowledgment of the Emancipation 
Act of 182 9. 2 Death took him away from the troubles 
that burst upon Rome, and upon Europe, from the second 
French Revolution of 1830. 

His successor, Gregory xvi. (cardinal Cappellani), 
received, on the very day of his coronation, the first 
rumours of the infection having reached his own 
dominions. In two days more, Bologna was in insurrec- 
tion : in less than a week shots were fired in Rome, and 
the carnival was suspended. Provisional governments 
were formed in the provincial cities, and a revolutionary 
army marched upon Rome, demanding a republic. 
Gregory did not shrink from staining his white robe 

insinuating that the poor peasantry were really noblemen in disguise : nay, 
" it was whispered that one couple, a German and his wife, were of even 
higher blood !" 

1 The following is a translation : "To Leo the Great, my patron in 
heaven, suppliantly commending myself, here amid his sacred ashes have 
I selected my sepulchre ; Leo xn., a humble client, of the inheritors of so 
great a name the least." Cardinal Wiseman produces this unchristian 
epitaph as an elegant specimen of the "lapidary style," so much valued 
at Rome ! 

2 Bishop Weld was named to the cardinalate 25th May 1830. 



SEVERITIES OF THE POPE. 



457 



in the blood of his subjects J 1 he called the Austrians 
to his aid, and crushed the insurrection. He had no 
objection to revolution, when it separated Roman 
Catholic Belgium from the Protestant kingdom of the 
Netherlands, but he regarded with different feelings 
the progress of " young Italy" in the opposite direction. 
A second insurrection at Bologna in 1843, and another 
at Rimini in 1845, were quelled with equal severity. 
In spite of Gregory's love of literature and art, 
and the liberality with which he acknowledged 
revolutionary governments in all other states, he 
was so resolute in suppressing the first symptoms of 
discontent in his own, that when the tiara descended to 
the present pope in 1846, his first act was to issue an 
amnesty to no less than three thousand subjects of the 
papacy, who were languishing in prison and exile, for 
the crime of not sufficiently valuing the government of 
St. Peter's successor. 

Pius ix., of the noble house of Ferretti, came to 
the pontifical throne (1846) with the loudest professions 
of liberality. He followed up the amnesty by the 
appointment of a National Guard, and the expulsion 
of the Austrian troops from the territories of the 
Church. Bushing to the van of the revolutionary 
movement, that was now agitating Italy from the 
Alps to the sea, the pope declared war against 
Austria, the hereditary champion of the papacy, in 
concert with the king of Sardinia, who was more than 
suspected of an eye to its possessions. The red white 
and green flag, for embroidering which the young 
countess Eosa Testi was condemned to three years' 

1 He was a monk of the Camaldolese order, a branch of the Benedic- 
tines, whose habit is white : and as monks assume no colour but their 
own in any dignity, Gappellani wore the same as monk, cardinal, and pope. 
— Wiseman, p. 420, note. 



458 



THE FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 



imprisonment at Florence in 1831, went forth at the head 
of the Sardinian army, with the sanction of the Holy 
See, to be the banner of a united Italy in 1848. This 
incongruous alliance was of brief duration. Lombardy 
had been annexed, and Naples was in a state of siege, 
when an insurrection at Eome at once alienated the pope, 
and gave occasion to foreign intervention. The French 
envoy, count Eossi, was assassinated, and the populace, 
besieging the papal palace, demanded extensive reforms. 
Pius, deserted by his National guard, yielded for the 
moment, but fled a few days after in disguise. Forth- 
with a republic was proclaimed, which at once abolished 
the temporal power (9th February 1849). Again the 
pontifical government was extinct, this time by the 
act of its nearest children, the people of Rome. Again 
it was destined to be reconstructed, and the restoration 
was undertaken by the very power which, forty years 
before, had been the first to assail it. 

Pius having reached Civitk Yecchia in safety, pro- 
tested against all that had been done in Rome, and 
appealed to the powers of his communion for aid to 
subdue his subjects. A National Assembly was again 
sitting in Paris, and, singularly enough, it was a 
French republic that sprang forward to answer the papal 
appeal, and compel the Roman people to receive again 
the ruler whom they had expelled. 

An expedition marched from Civitk Yecchia to 
Rome, which, assaulting the city, suffered a repulse 
from its defenders. This rebuff, by compromising the 
French " honour," rendered retreat impossible. By 
siege and storm Rome was reduced to capitulate 
(30th June 1849), and marshal Oudinot sent the keys 
to the pope at Gaeta. The pontiff resumed his authority 
under the protection of a French army, and has ever 
since held his power solely by their support. 



SECOND FALL AND RESTORATION. 



459 



The Liberal movement was at once repressed through- 
out Italy. Pins, going over to the other side in a panic, 
renewed his relations with Xaples. The Austrians . 
recovering Lombardy and Venice, restored also the 
grand duke of Tuscany, to continue his persecution of 
the Bible and its disseminators. Charles Albert paid 
the penalty of his zeal by abdicating the throne of Sar- 
dinia, and Italy relapsed into her chronic condition of 
tyranny, brigandage, and conspiracy. 

In these proceedings the Protestant powers took no 
part beyond the expression of public opinion on the side 
of liberty. The freedom with which this opinion is 
always uttered in England, speedily cancels all recollec- 
tion of favours extended to the government, or the 
religion, of Rome. The confidence reposed by the British 
Parliament in the progress of toleration, had been 
shown by its passing the Emancipation Act, without 
insisting on securities admitted by Roman Catholics 
themselves to be reasonable. Yet Pius ix. was no 
sooner restored to Pome than, from a spiritual tribunal 
surrounded by French bayonets, he issued a decree 
(prepared by Gregory) for the reconstitution of the papal 
hierarchy in England, with territorial designations, in open 
contempt of the prerogative of the British crown. An 
aggression, which would certainly not have been tolerated 
or attempted in any Roman Catholic state, could not 
fail to provoke resentment, yet it has been permitted 
to take its course in England. The multiplication of 
churches, monasteries, titles, orders, and ceremonies 
familiarise the public mind with papal institutions, 
and they are watched with profound dissatisfaction by 
all reflecting disciples of the Protestant Reformation. 

The last few years have witnessed another revolution 
in the Holy See, which, though as yet incomplete, 
presages a third extinction of at least the temporal 



460 



THE FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 



power. In the long struggle against French propa- 
gandised, England alone was consistent, because England 
only desired the triumph of ciyil and religious liberty. 
Neither Austria, Prussia, nor Eussia was free from the 
worst crimes of Napoleon i. They could never resist 
the temptation of plunder. The Grand Alliance for the 
independence of Europe was constantly interrupted by 
private attempts at appropriation, and the partitions of 
Poland and Venice will ever prove the insincerity of 
the despots concerned in it. When England at the 
congress of Vienna talked of restoring these nationalities, 
she was answered that a million of bayonets were ready 
to perpetuate their oppression. 

Eor the same reason England again stood alone in 
refusing to join the " Holy Alliance," framed by her 
allies in the hour of Napoleon's downfall. The despots 
thought only of the selfish interests of thrones and 
dynasties ; they imagined these to be the chief care of 
Christianity itself. Great Britain, who thought of the 
people also, stood forth at the next disturbance of peace 
in conjunction with Prance, represented by another 
Napoleon, against the propagandism of Russia. Sardinia 
seized the opportunity to recall her name to the disciples 
of liberty. Austria was reluctantly and dubiously drawn 
in : Prussia, seeing nothing to be gained on either side, 
was neutral. It was little expected that the cannon fired 
at Sebastopol would shake the chair of St. Peter; but 
the papacy is always consistent in repressing movement : 
whatever is not stagnation may prove destruction. 

The appearance of Sardinia in arms by the side of 
England and Prance, awoke the spirit of liberty in 
Italy. At the treaty of peace, signed at Paris 27th 
April, 1856, the British and Prench plenipotentiaries 
declared against the continued occupation of the States 
of the Church, and the duchies, by foreign troops. They 



WAR IN THE CRIMEA AND IN ITALY. 461 

added that the misgovernment of the king of Naples 
was dangerous to the peace of Europe. On these points 
Austria refused to concur, and Russia was silent. An 
Anglo-French remonstrance to the Neapolitan court was 
followed by the recall of both ambassadors. These 
warnings were replied to by extending the powers of the 
inquisition to an espionage on domestic life. Sardinia 
beginning to arm was peremptorily summoned by 
Austria to desist ; and ten days after France declared war 
against Austria (3rd May 1859). 

To the surprise of Europe, the German art of war 
proved wholly unequal to the contest which it had 
challenged. At Montebelio, Palestro, Magenta, Malignano, 
and Solferino, the Austrians were defeated with a loss 
of 40,000 killed and wounded. The surprise was still 
greater when from the field of Solferino Napoleon rode 
to meet the emperor of Austria at Villafranca, and 
concluded an armistice without consulting his ally. 
"Trance," he afterwards announced, " had gone to war for 
an idea," but the idea clearly did not include a great and 
united Italy, independent of France, perhaps outstripping 
her in the march of freedom. The treaty of Zurich 
(10th November 1859) added Lombardy to Sardinia, 
but left Yenice to the Austrians, and Rome to the pope, 
sustained by a French garrison. 

In the South of Italy events proceeded faster than 
was anticipated. Ferdinand of Naples dying on the 
22nd May 1859, the chronic misrule inherited and 
persevered in by his son, Francis n., provoked a 
general insurrection the following year. Garibaldi 
leaving Genoa with 2000 men, landed at Marsala, 
captured Palermo, and was master of the island 
in a single engagement. Returning to the continent, 
the victor entered Naples, while Francis fled to Gaeta. 
The movement extended to the States of the Church, in 



462 



THE FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 



which general Lamoriciere commanded the papal troops. 
The Sardinian general opposed him without hesitation. 
Cialdini took Pesaro, Faro, and Urbino. Perugia and 
Foligno surrendered to Delia Rocca. Spoleto was carried 
by storm. At Castel Fidarclo, Lamoriciere was routed, 
and fled to Ancona, the siege and capture of which 
completed this brilliant campaign (29th September 1860). 
Two days after Garibaldi defeated the Neapolitan army 
at Volturno, and accompanying Victor Emmanuel into 
Naples, resigned his conquests to his sovereign as king 
of Italy. The title was formally promulgated by the 
Turin senate on the 26th February 1861, and the 
Bourbon struggle was at an end. 

The unity of Italy was celebrated by a national 
festival at Florence, 2nd June ; but two things were 
still wanting to the hopes inspired by Napoleon when he 
summoned the Italians to the conflict. Italy was to be 
liberated from the Alps to the sea : but Venice was yet 
in the hands of the Austrians, and Rome bristled with 
French bayonets. Victor Emmanuel attempted in vain to 
complete the splendid vision which had so captivated 
the national enthusiasm. His imperial ally now frowned 
on his ambition, and sternly repressed his intrigues. 
Austria (he began to see) needed support against Prussia, 
now openly aspiring to the lead in Germany, and Rome 
was indispensable to his own policy at home. Moreover, 
France always likes to protect its neighbours better 
than to see them strong enough to protect themselves. 
Napoleon bade Italy rest and be thankful ; while, in 
payment for the assistance already rendered, he exacted 
a cession of Savoy and Nice from the reluctant king, 
and called upon the French to rejoice in the restoration 
of their natural boundaries on the side of the Alps. 

In Germany, however, things had gone too far to 
recede. Prussia declared war against Austria, and, by 



KINGDOM OF ITALY. 



463 



a series of rapid blows, crowned by a decisive victory 
at Sadowa, reduced her to a capitulation which united 
Germany under the lead of her opponent, and put out of 
the question all further interference in Italy. 

The Italians, at the first outburst of hostilities, 
eagerly offered their alliance to Prussia, in the expecta- 
tion of wresting Yenice from the common enemy. But 
Austria was unable to fight out the game ; after inflict- 
ing a severe defeat on the Italian forces by land and by 
sea, she resigned Yenice to the French emperor, by 
whom it was handed over to Italy. The gift was 
received with little gratitude by a people who saw the 
enemy's honour saved at the expense of their own. The 
nominal evacuation of Eome by the French troops was 
still more distasteful ; since their place was supplied by 
foreign soldiers commanded by French officers, and 
avowedly under the French protection. The delusion 
was exposed to all the world, when on Garibaldi ad- 
vancing against Eome, with the countenance and secret 
support of the Italian Government, ISTapoleon despatched 
an expedition to its defence, and once more rescued the 
papacy from the hands of a baffled and indignant 
nationality. 

This anomalous condition of affairs still continues. 
Italy never ceases to demand Eome for its capital, 
nor the Eomans themselves to demand a share in 
their own government. Against these legitimate 
requirements, all that is pretended are the wishes of 
Eoman Catholics in other countries, who being them- 
selves exempt from the yoke, insist on the temporal 
government of the pope as necessary to the free exercise 
of his spiritual authority. In vain the Eomans ask 
why they alone of all mankind are to be condemned to 
perpetual bondage. In vain is it shown from history, 
that in the days when the Eoman See acquired and best 



464 



THE FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION. 



exercised its spiritual authority, the bishops had no 
temporal rule whatever; that the Church was never 
worse cared for than when the popes were most absolute, 
and that every council, and every kingdom, has un- 
ceasingly sought the common welfare in abridging their 
pretensions. The French emperor, for his own purposes, 
still upholds the tottering chair, which his uncle twice 
overthrew, and the Protestant monarchies rehabilitated 
on the ruin of his dynasty. The triple crown is held 
again, as in the days of Charlemagne, at the sole 
pleasure of the French monarch. But the Holy Eoman 
empire is no more : the kings of Europe no longer fly to 
the Holy Father's support. Austria, excluded from 
Italy and humiliated in Germany, has torn up the 
concordat with Borne, and now opposes her mitred crown 
against the tiara, in almost Protestant independence. 
Italy, united and ambitious, will quit the religious com- 
munion, rather than recede from the political possession, 
of Borne : even Spain, so long the most docile and devoted 
of subjects, as these pages are passing from the 
press, has expelled the Most Catholic sovereign in a 
revolution of three days' duration, and, proclaiming 
freedom of religion, welcomes the Bible to her noble 
but benighted population. 

The Boman Catholic world is falling away on 
every side from the false centre, to the preservation 
of which the rights of humanity have so long been 
sacrificed. If the French emperor will still defend 
it, he must defend it alone. Among his own subjects 
the zeal for the papacy is confined to the peasantry 
of the rural districts, and out of France the only 
European population that exhibits any attachment to it 
are the priest-led people of Ireland. In this country, it 
is true, the singular liberality of the law allows a scope 
for papal machinations which every Boman Catholic 



PRESENT PROSPECTS. 



465 



government deems inconsistent with its own safety. If 
the Protestant heart of England were less resolnte than 
it is, the Romish hierarchy, aided by Eomanisers among 
ourselves, might with some reason indulge the hope 
(recently avowed by its chief at Westminster) of recom- 
mencing the conquest of the world by the conversion of 
England. 

This dream of perverts and enthusiasts will soon 
be dispelled. History is not about to recoil upon her 
path. The religious supremacy of the pope will pro- 
bably last as long as there are men who crave "the 
consolations " of religion, apart from its spiritual experi- 
ence ; who trust the priest before the Redeemer ; and 
would take Revelation at second hand, rather than listen 
to its majestic voice in the written Word of God. But 
the temporal government of Rome can endure no longer 
than it pleases the French emperor to oppose the legions 
and the aspirations of Italy. Its fall can hardly be far 
distant, and there will be no one to build it again. 
Not in that political change, however, are we to 
expect the fulfilment of the "last woe." Further and 
more extensive revolutions must probably be carried 
out, before the great millstone will be cast into the sea, 
and the mighty angel shall proclaim, " Babylon is 
thrown down and shall be found no more at all." 
Nevertheless, that day also will surely come, and in the 
anticipation of it, all faithful voices are even now repeat- 
ing the Redeemer's cry, " Come out of her, my people, 
that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive 
not of her plagues." 



EHEATUM. 
Page 261. For Tertiarics read Tcrtiaries. 



INDEX. 



The names in small capitals refer to emperors : those in italics to bishops of Rome. 



page 

Adalbert (marq.) .. . . 145 
(abp.) .. .. 151 

Adolphus 45 

Adrian I. 126 

„ III. 136 

„ IV. 236 

„ VI. 339 

Aetius '.47 

A ga pet us I. 92 

Agilulph 98 

Aidan 200 

Alaric 40 

Alberic 146 

Albigenses . . 226, 232, 334 

Alboin 89 

Alcuin 127 

Alemands 42 

Alexander II. 168 

III. .. ..220 

IV. .. .. 236 

V 27/ 

VI. .. ..313 

VIII. .. ..416 

Amadeus 300 

Amalsont 52 

Ambrose 39 

Angles 97 

Anicetus 72 

Anselm 190 

Apostles, Tombs of . . . . 57 

Aqueducts 404 

Arcadcus 39 

Archbishops 31 

Arians 42 

Aries, Council of . . 35, 74, 173 
Armada, Spanish . . . . 397 

Army 26, 113 

Arnold 222 

Arnulphus 142 

Astulphus 118 

Athanasius 74 

Attila 41, 47 

Augsburg, Confession of . . 347 
Augustine, St. . . 40, 46 

(abp.) .. ..100 

Augustinians 206 

augustulus 49 

Augustus .. 8,11,12,123 

Ausgar 153 

Austrians, Retirement of. . 463 

Authbert 153 

Avars 89 

Aventine Hill . . . . 4 
Avignon \. .. 248,271 
Babylon . . 9, 46, 63, 466 
Babylonish Captivity . . 248 

Baiazet 312 

Bannerets . . . . 266, 275 
Barbarc-SSA . . . . 222, 225 

Baronius 407 

Basle, Council of . . . . 299 
Beatific vision . . . . 282 

Beghards 261 

Beguines 261 

Belgrade 306 

Bellarmine 406 

Belisarius 52 

Benedict V 147 

VI 148 

VII 150 

IX 157 

XI 245 



Benedict XII. 

XIII. .. 
XIV. 

Benedictine Order . . 
Berengarius . . 
Berenger 
Berlin Decrees 

Bertha 

Bertram 

Bible 

Bishops 

Bologna 
Boniface VIII.. 

„ IX 

Boniface of England 



PAGE 

259, 262 
.. 279 
.. 426 
201 
.. 158 
.. 145 
.. 448 
.. 100 
.. 157 

269, 329 



238 
240 

115 

312 

Bradwardine, St 248 

Brigida 208 

Britain 30, 46, 101 

Bruno 149, 165 

Bugenhagen 354 

Bull, Excommunication of 192 
,, Burning of .. .. 337 

Burgundians 42 

Byzantium 21 

Vadolus 168 

Cselian HiU 4 

Caesar, Julius . . . . 7 
,, Octavianus.. .. 7 
Title of .. ..11 
Caius (presb.) .. ..65 

Cajetan 320 

Calixtus II. 193 

III. 306 

Calvin 352 

Campo Formio . . . . 438 
Canon Law . . . . 153, 219 
Canons, Regular & Secular 204 

Canonesses 208 

Canossa 146 

Canterbury 100 

Capitoline Hill . . . . 3 
Caraffa . . . . 358, 303 

Cardinals . . . . 125, 167 

Carmelites 206 

Caroline Books . . . . 127 

Carranga 402 

Carthusians 202 

Catharin, Ambrose . . 372 
Catherine of Sienna . . 208 

Cead walla 115 

Celestine I. 78 

„ III. 228 

V 241 

Celibacy . . 137, 171, 376 

Cencio 148 

Cesarini 302 

Chalcedon, Council of . . 78 

Chalons 48 

Chapters, Three . . . . 93 
Charlemagne 126, 129, 134 
Charles, Bald . . 135 

V. . . 260, 265, 338 

VI 425 

Charles III. (Naples) . . 272 
Charles Martel . . . . 123 
Charles of Anjou .. ..236 

Salerno .. ..240 

Childebert 124 

Chosroes 105 

Christianity, Establishment 
of .18 



PAGE 

Church and State . . S3, 110 
Church of England . . .. 128 
Circumcelliones .. ..36 

Cistercians 202 

City of God 46 

dement I. 69 

„ II. 152 

„ III. 186 

„ IV. 237 

„ V 247 

„ VI. . . .. 242, 260 
„ VII. (Avign.) .. 271 

„ VII. 279 

,, VII. 341 

„ VIII. .. ..409 

„ XI. 425 

„ XIII. .. ..429 

„ XIV 429 

Clementines .. .. 220, n, 
Clermont, Council of . . 211 
Cloisters, Use of .. ..209 

Clotilda 122 

Clovis 52, 122 

Cluny 156 

Cobham, Thos 255 

Lord .. .. 283 
Code, Justinian . . 86, 219 
Colman .. ..81 

Columban 200 

Columbus 318 

Complutensian Bible .. 330 

Conrad 1 146 

II 150 

Conradin 236 

Conscience 19 

Constance, Council of 284, 295 
Constans II. . . . . 108 

CONSTANTINE 1 13 

Donation of . . 33, 125 

Constantine 115 

Constantinople . . 21, 304 

Council of 77 

Constitution, Imperial . . 27 

Consul 6,26,123 

Consulars 25 

Contarini 354 

Corvinus 309 

Corsica 240 

Cossa 277 

Councils, (Ecivmenioal 31,293 
Fifth General .. 95 
Sixth General .. 113 
In Trullo . . .115 

Counts 26 

Coverdale 331 

Creed of Pius IV. .. ..381 

Crescentius 149 

Crimean "War 461 

Cross, True 166 

Crown, Early 12 

,, Golden .. ..136 
Iron .. .. 89,126 

Silver 136 

Crusades 210 

Cup, Eucharistic, 288, 302, 

375, 379, 392 

Cyprian 73 

Dagobert 123 

Damasus I. 76 

D'Ailli 295 

Decretals .. .. 153,219 
Defender of the Faith .. 329 



INDEX. 



467 



PAGE 

Desiderius 126 

Diocletian 12 

Diploma, Golden . . . . 147 
Dispensations . . . . 254 
Divinity, Faculty of .. 220 

Dominicans 2U5 

Donatists 35 

Double Procession . . , . 138 
Dragon, Red .. .. ..132 

Dukes 26 

Eagle, Imperial . . . . 132 
Easter, Controversy on . . 72 

Edwin, King 101 

Election, Papal 147, 152, 165, 

227, 237, 270 
Elizabeth, Queen . . 366, 396 
Elvira, Council of . , . . 172 

Emperor 9 

Empire, Old Roman . . 8 
,, Christian .. .. 8 
„ Carlovingian 120, 130 
England, Papacv in, 112, 

229, 395, 452, 454 



Ephesus, Council of 
Episcopacy 
Esquilfne Hill 
Ethelbert 
Eucharist 



78 
376 
4 

99 
157 

Eugenius III. 221 

IV 299 

Exarchate 85 

Exarchs 89 

Excommunication . . . . 181 
Faith, Rule of . . . . 283 

Felix V. 301 

Ferrara, Council of . . . . 300 

Finan 200 

Florence, Council of . . 301 

Forum 3 

Franciscans . . . . 205, 200 

Franks 42 

Fratricelli 261 

Frederick II. . . 228, 234 

III 304 

Frederick, Elector . . . . 345 

Friars 206 

GALERIUS 13 

Gallican Church, 243, 307, 

410, 422, 434 
..429 



Ganganelli 
Gelasius I. 

II. 



G-ermaine 79 

German Empire . . . . 136 

Gerson, John 294 

Ghibellines, 235, 238, 250, 259. 310 

Gladiators 40 

GLYCERIUS 49 

Greeks, Union with, 237, 265,300 
Gregory I. 



II. . 

III. ! . 

V. . 

VI. . 
VII. 
IX. . 
XI. . 
XII 
XIII. 
XV. 
XVI. 



.. 115 
.. 124 
.. 119 
.. 165 
.. 169 
234, 252 
266, 281 
.. 276 
.. 394 
.. 411 
.. 456 



Grievances, Hundred . . 340 
Guelphs, 235, 238, 250, 259, 310 



Gunpowder 
Gustavus Adolphus 
Gutenburg 

Guy 

Hadrian, Mole of . 
Hagen, Adelsteen . 
Henry I. 

„ II. .. 

„ III. .. 

„ IV. .. 

„ V. 



PAGE 

Henry II. of England ... 222 

„ VIII 342 

Heraclius 105 

Heresy (capital) . . , . 284 

Heruli 42 

Hierarchy, Imperial . . 24 
„ Ecclesiastioal. . 29 

Hilary 80 

Hilary of Aries .. ..80 

Hildebrand 163 

Holy See 56 

HONORITTS .. . . 38, 40 

Honorius I. 107 

„ II. 221 

„ III. 234 

Host, Adoration of . . . . 375 

Huguenots 393 

Huns 46 

Huss, John 285 

Idolatry 377 

Image Worship . . 116, 128 
Immaculate Conception 302, 373 

Imperator 10 

Ina 115 

Indulgences . . . . 281, 333 

Infallibility 377 

Infidelity, Pagan . . . . 19 
Innocent II. . . . . 221 

III. 218, 228, 233 

IV 234 

V 238 

VII 276 

VIII 312 

„ X 419 

XI 423 

Inquisition, 205, 367, 3 84, 433, 454 
Institutes, Justinian's . . 86 

Interdict 231 

Investiture . . [169, 177, 194 

Ireland 223, 365 

Irenaeus 73 

Iron Crown . . 89, 126, 449 
Isidorus of Seville . . . . 153 

Istamboul 24 

Italian Empire . . 136, 145 
„ Kingdom, 425, 438, 458, 

i . . 462, 463 
Italy, Spoil of . . . . 53 

Jansenists 417 

Jerome of Prague . . . . 288 
Jerusalem . . 47, 105, 238 
Jesuits, 385, 408, 410, 417, 427, 454 
Joanna of Naples 249, 264, 271 

John IV 108 

„ VIII. 135 

„ XI. 146 

„ XII. 146 

„ XIII .154 

„ XV 156 

„ XIX. 150 

„ XXII. .. .. 251,262 

„ XXIII 277 

John, King of England . . 229 

Joseph II 430 

Jubilee 241, 264, 275, 303, 309 
J udgment Day . . . . 159 

J ulius I. 74 

„ II. 319 

„ III. 360 

Justification 370 

Justinian I. . . 52, 86 

II 114 

Keys, Power of . . . . 71 

Kilian 200 

Kings, Roman . . . . 5 
„ Rights of . . . . 390 

Labarum 17 

Lainez 373, 387 

Lambert 145 

Langton, Stephen . . . . 230 

Latin Church . . . . 85 

Lateran, St. John's, . ,. 65 
Councils , . . . 218 
Lausanne . . . . . . 301 

Legates 176 



page 
.. 110 
D, 79, 80 
.. 129 
,. 147 
.. 166 
323 
455 



Leo II 

Leo I. .. 
III. 
VIII. 

IX. .. 

X. . . 
XII. 

Leonine City 141 

Leopold II 431 

Liberius , . , . . . 74 

Licinius 13 

Lingerers 42 

Linus 69 

Lollards 284 

Lombards 42 

London, Council of . . . . 191 

Lothaire 1 135 

Louis (Clovis) . . . . 123 

Louis I. 134 

V. . . . . . . 259 

Louis IX. (France) . . '. '. 205 

„ XIV. „ .. ..421 

„ XVI. „ .. ..436 
Loyola, Ignatius . . 385, 411 
Lucius II. 221 

„ III. 227 

Luther, Martin . . . . 327 
Lyons, Council of . . . . 237 
Magna Charta . . . . 233 

Man, Isle of 234 

Manfred 230 

Marcella 207 

MarcellusII 365 

Marengo .. .. 445 

Mariana 407 

Marinier 372 

Marozia 145 

Marriage . . 87, 172, 376 

Martin 1 108 

„ IV 239 

V 280 

Mary, Queen 353 

Masses for the Dead, 281, 

. . 335, 377 
Matilda, Countess . . 167, 238 

Maximilian 321 

Mazarin Bible .. 330 

Medici de' 310 

Melchiades 35 

Mendicant Orders . . 208, 261 
Mentz, Synod of . . . . 116 
Merovingians .. .. 122 
Metropolitans .. ..28 

Micislaus 154 

Michael Pal^ologus . . 237 

Milan 12 

Milvian Bridge, Battle of . . 13 
Mirror, Golden .. ..295 
Missions, Jesuit .. .. 389 

Mole, Jean 256 

Monastieism . . . . 175, 196 
Monks, Eastern . . . . 197 
,, "Western .. .. 200 

Molina 389 

Mortmain, Statute of . . 253 

Munzer 345 

Nantes, Edict of . . . . 395 
Naples 90, 240 

Partition of 317 

Napoleon Buonaparte, 437, 447 
Neapolitan Succession, 307, 315 
Nephews, Pope's, . . 319, 416 
Nicsea, Council of . . . . 74 
„ Second ditto .. 127 
Nicene Creed . . . . 138 

Nicholas II. 167 

V. (Antipope) .. 259 

Nicomedia 12 

Normandy 153 

Normans 178 

Novels, Justinian's . . . . 86 
Numa, Pompilius . . . . 5 

Ntms * 207 

Obelisks 405 

Ockwian, Pope. . ,. .. 146 



468 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Odoacer 49 

Offa 

Olaus 

Orders, Religious . . 

,, Military 
Ordination of Charles V 

Origen 

Ostrogoths 

Oswy 

Otho I. 

„ II 

,, III 

Palatine Hill 
Paleario 
Pall, The 
Palladius 

Pandects, Justinian's 
Papacy 

Papal States Annexed to 

Rome 

Papal Aggression 
Partition of the Empire . . 

Paschal II. 

Paschasius Radbert 

Paphnusius 

Patriarchs 

Patrician 

Patronage, Church 

Paul, Saint 

Paul II. 

„ III. 

„ IV 

„ V. 

Paulinus 

Peasants, War of . . 
Pedro of Arragon 

Pepin 

Perttnax 

Pestilence .. .. 96, 
Peter St., Episcopacy of . . 
,, Martyrdom of 5* 



. 115 

. 154 
. 203 
. 204 

347 
. 93 
. 42 
. 82 
. 146 
. 143 
. 148 
. 3 
. 356 
. 103 
. 79 
5, 219 

143 

450 
460 

38 
188 
157 
172 

29 

25 
171 

58 
308 
357 



Patrimony of 125, 22 



„ Successors of 
,, Years of . 
,, Lombard, 

Peter, Martyr 

Peterpence 

Petrarch 

Philip I. of Prance . 

Phocas 

Pisa, Council of % 
Pistoia, Synod of 
Pius II. 



„ IV. 

» v. 

„ VI. 
„ VII. 
„ VIII. .. 

„ ix. 

Poissy, Colloquy of 
Poitiers, Battle of . 
Pole, Cardinal 
Polycarp 
Polycrates 
Pontifex, Maximus . 
Pope, Title of ' 
Port Royal 
Pragmatic Sanction 
Prastoria, Imperial . 
Praetorian Prefect . 
Prelacy, Growth of . 
Premunire 
Presidents 
Primacy, Roman 
Printing, Invention of 
Proconsuls 
Procida, John of 
Propaganda . . 
Protest at Spires 



.. 220 
. . 355 
.. 253 
.. 25 
.. 180 
.. 104 

297, 323 
.. 431 
.. 307 

368, 401 
.. 408 
.. 439 
.. 445 
.. 456 
.. 458 
.. 394 
.. 123 

361, 372 



.. 72 
10, 19 
29, 104 
.. 419 
307, 324 



25 
31 

25 

67, 163 

330 



25 



412 

3-i<5 



PAGE 

Provinces, Eastern . . . . 26 
,, Western .. 27 
Provisions. Papal . . . . 251 
Pro visors, Statute of ..253 
Prussia . . . . 383, 424, 448 
Purgatory . . . . 156, 377 
Quinisext Council . . 115, 173 

Quiriual Hill 3 

Rabanus Marus . . . . 157 
Ratisbon, League of . . 344 
„ Truce of . . 351 

Ravenna . . . . 40, 85 
Reformation, Protestant, 

353 382 

Regalia, St. Peter's . .' 182 

Relics 182 

Republic, Roman . . . . 440 
Reservations, Paoal . . 251 
Restorations at Rome . . 405 
Revenues, Papal . . . . 252 
Revolution, French . . 434 
,, Roman 457, 458 

Ricimer 48 

RienzL 264 

Robert Guiscard . . . . 179 
Rock of the Church . . 70 

Rodolptt 185 

Roger of Sicily . . 179, 221 

Rollo 153 

Romagna 238 

Rome, Origin of . . 2 
Sack of 44,47,141,187, 

290, 343 

„ Church of . . . . 57 
Duchy of .. 90,118 
Romulus .. .. 3 

Roumania . . . . 1 

Rupert .. ..275 

Sacraments, Seven .. 372 

Sadowa . . . . 463 

Saint Bartholomew, Mas- 
sacre of .. ..394 

St. Cyran 418 

St. John, Knight of, 204, 258, 306 
St. Peter's Church . . . . 324 
Saints, Intercession of . . 261 
SaladinX. .. .. 212 

Salisbury, Robert of . . 295 
Saracens .. .. 123,141. 
Sardica, Council of . . 77 
Sardinia .. .'. 240,425 

Savoy 425 

Saxons 50 

Saxony, Conversion of . . 133 
Schism of East and West 137 
„ Tridentine 369, 378 
Scotland, Church of 228, 242 
Scotus, John . . . . 158 
Scripture, Holy, 157, 282, 329, 369 
Seat of Government, Re- 
moval 21 

Sepulchre, Holy .. ..106 
Sergius I. . . ..114 

„ III. .. .. 146 

Seripand 372 

Seven- Hilled City . . , . 4 

Sforza 315 

Sicilian Vespers .. ..239 

Sicily 179, 425 

Sigismund . . . . 277, 286 
Simon Magus .. ..60 
Simony . . . . 169, 254 

SixtusIV. 310 

,, V. .. . . 403, 409 
Smalcald, League of . . 344 
Spanish Succession . . . 424 

Spirituals 261 

Spires, Diet of . . . . 344 
State Church . . . . 32 



PAGE 

Stephen I. 73 

„ ///. .. ..124 

Style, New 403 

Suburbicarian Provinces . . 27 
Successions, Contemporary 
xi., 38, 84, 120, 140, 102, 246, 

268, 292, 326, 362, 3U9, 442 

Supremacy 164 

Suwarow 444 

Swfia 154 

Sylla .. .-. .. ..7 
Sylverius . . . . 52, 92 
Synods, Legatine . . . . 176 
Primitive .. ..29 

Syrichis 173 

Temple, Order of . . 204, 256 

Terfciaries 261 

Tetzel 334 

Teutonic Order .. ..204 

Theodora 92 

Theodora 145 

Theodore 108 

Theodore of Canterbury . . Ill 

Theodoric 51 

Theodosius 38 

Theolinda 89 

TogrulBey .. .. ..305 

Tonsure Ill 

Totila 54 

Tradition . . . . 373, 419 

Traditors 34 

Trent, Council of . . . . 359 
Transubstantiation 233, 281 
Trullo, Council in . . . . 115 
Trumpet, Sixth . . . . 305 

Turks 305, 343 

Tuscany 425 

Tyndal 331 

Ulphilas 42 

Unction, Extreme . . . . 375 
Universal Bishop . . . . 104 
Urban II. .. . . 188, 211 

„ V 265 

„ VI. 271 

Urbino 322 

Utrecht, Peace of . . . . 425 
Valdez, Juan . . . . 355 

Valentinian II 76 

III. 47, 80 

Valentino 317 

Vallambrosa, Monks of . . 202 

Vandals 41 

Vatican Hill .. .. 65,141 

Venice 90,438 

Veronica 254 

Verulam. Council of 79, 128 
Vicars, Diocesan . . . . 25 

Victor I. 72 

„ II. 166 

„ III. 188 

Vienne, Council of . . . . 255 
Vigilius .. .. 92 

ViminalHili 4 

Visigoths 42 

Vitalian 112 

Vulgate, Roman ..• ..370 

Waldenses 226 

Westphalia, Peace of . . 413 

Wiclif 281 

Wighard HI 

Wilfred 81, 112 

William Ruf us .. ..190 
,, Iron Arm . . . . 179 
,, de Nbgaret . . 245 
Wiseman, Cardinal . . 456 
Worms, Diet of . . . . 338 

Xavier H 1 

York 101 



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